


Desolate

by lhlsy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Ben Solo, Alpha Kylo Ren, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Claiming Bites, Criminal Kylo Ren, Dubious Consent, F/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Minor Character Death, Omega Rey (Star Wars), POV Alternating, Police Officer Rey, Rape/Non-con Elements, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:13:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23058289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lhlsy/pseuds/lhlsy
Summary: “I don’t care what her reason for sending you over here is,” he huffs out an annoyed breath, “I’m not interested.”At that her stance changes, she straightens up, almost puffing her chest out, her eyes regard him with a sort of intensity he has never seen an Omega exude before, “Mr. Solo, I’m a police officer,” she starts, her tone now laced with annoyance, and even a hint of anger, “I merely came over to introduce myself since I’m tasked with your security.”He smirks, a small snicker escaping his lips. He can’t help it. He really can’t. It’s just so extremely laughable that the young woman in front him is supposed to be his security.Not that she’s really there to protect him, like she seems to think. The police are only there to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, like try to take off his ankle bracelet and skip town.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 110
Kudos: 585





	1. Chapter 1

“Officer Niima, please have a seat.”

Rey smiles as she takes a seat in front of Sheriff Chewie’s desk.

“What I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential,” his low rumbling voice starts, making Rey straighten up and nod. This is her first job since graduating from the academy, and she’s been here for two years doing mostly routine traffic stops and responding to a few fights that sometimes break out at Maz’s Bar. Strictly confidential sounds intriguing, like real police work. Not that what she has been doing isn’t police work, she just hoped that after a while she might be able to work on something bigger.

Chandrila is a small town, like a sleepy suburb, a one-hour drive outside the big city Coruscant. Getting a job at the police department in the big city was her first choice, but they mostly favored Officers with more experience and preferably Alphas and Betas. Rey being fresh out of the academy and an Omega, made it virtually impossible for her to even get an interview at the Police department in Coruscant or any other big city, for that matter, so she had ended up in Chandrila.

There was no favoritism or discrimination on designation here, like there were in the big cities. Society had of course moved on from a more primal view of designations, and there were laws in place to ensure that there was no discrimination based on designations in the workplace but in Rey’s experience those laws weren’t always followed to the letter.

Sheriff Chewie had never viewed her any different because of her designation, it was never an issue. Chewie was an Alpha himself, and probably the first Alpha Rey had encountered that didn’t give her the creeps. He always treated her with respect and never looked like he wanted to devour her when she was close to her heat. It was comforting knowing that Alphas could be like Chewie. Chewie and Officer Lando, Chewie’s partner before Chewie become the Sheriff, had over the time she had worked there become sort of father figures. With both of them nearing retirement she knew that hiring her was a sign of trust, along with Chewie, Lando and Rey, the only other Officer working in the town was Poe, a Beta, and without it being said, it was clear that Poe and Rey would run the department after Chewie and Lando retired.

“The department in Coruscant has been in contact,” Chewie continues, “we have been asked to help them with keeping an eye on and provide security for a person on court mandated house arrest.”

Rey raises an eyebrow, of all the things she hoped Chewie would say, keeping an eye on a person was not what she hoped for. It was like being a glorified babysitter.

Chewie can probably sense her disappointment, his eyes boring into hers, “this is a very important job.”

“But why don’t they just do it themselves?” Rey blurts out.

Chewie shakes his head, sighing, “it’s at the Organa-Solo estate.”

Rey’s brows furrow in confusion. The Organa-Solo estate is the closest they came to a palace in town.

Leia Organa and Han Solo was like royalty. Organa was a Senator and had been for as long as Rey could remember, she was respected, had championed many laws that had bettered the society, both in the state and the country, even the law that allowed Rey to even be a Police Officer.

Leia Organa was an icon, and one of Rey’s idols. Her husband Han Solo, a successful businessman, former pilot in the air force that started his own airline. The first airline that hired all designations, even before his wife championed the law against designation discrimination in the workplace. They were both impressive and icons of their generation. And what was even more impressive was that they were both Beta. Betas were never discriminated against, so Betas working so hard for the equal rights of all designations was unheard of before them.

“As you can probably gather, having police officers from Coruscant crawling around the estate is going to raise some eyebrows,” Chewie continues.

“Of course,” Rey mutters, “but who are we keeping an eye on?”

“Ben Solo.”

Rey’s brows furrows in confusion again. She has no idea who that is.

“Leia and Han’s son, Benjamin Organa-Solo, goes by Ben Solo. He’s a lawyer. Works and lives in Coruscant,” he pauses, eyes meeting hers, “they didn’t tell me much, and I didn’t ask. All I know is that Ben is under court mandated house arrest, and he has chosen his parents’ house to stay at. He’s got an ankle bracelet on that will alert us if he steps over the property line.”

Rey nods, still a bit confused as to why she has never heard of Ben Solo.

“Even with the bracelet, the Coruscant police still want’s a police presence at the estate, something the Organa-Solo’s has agreed to. We will work in shifts to ensure that there is always on Officer on sight,” Chewie says.

***

As he drives up the road, seeing the big main house at the estate appear before him he regrets his choice. He never liked it here.

His parents are waiting for him outside when he pulls up in front of the house. Surprisingly, they’re smiling and greet him with hugs and kisses on the cheek.

“Ben, it’s so good to see you,” his mother beams at him.

Ben shrugs, “it’s only for a short while,” he pauses, regarding his parents smiling faces, “I’ll try to stay out of your hair.”

His father’s hand lands on his shoulder, pulling him closer, “nonsense, you’re always welcome, and stay for as long as you want.”

Ben’s eyebrows raise, eyes narrow, as his father ushers him into the house while his mother has started talking about how nice it is that he is staying with them.

Ben shrugs his father’s hold of his shoulder off and puts some space between them as they enter the foyer.

He never understood his parents. He could never decipher what their angle was, and he was sure there was an angle.

What their angle was became even more unclear to him as they usher him out to the garden at the back of the house.

This was his mother’s doing no doubt.

Men and women, all dressed appropriately for a garden party, holding drinks in their hands are gathered on the lawn, engaging in polite conversation. He recognizes some of them as his mother’s colleagues and campaign contributors.

He sighs as he looks down at his mother’s smiling face, “what’s the occasion?” he asks, knowing that his mother is probably just using her son’s homecoming as an excuse to parade him around, showing him off to all her powerful friends.

“Just a small gathering to welcome you home,” she answers, still smiling up at him.

Ben scoffs, “sure,” he looks over the crowd, “having all your campaign contributors here is to welcome me home.”

His mother sighs, “it doesn’t hurt to introduce you to them.”

“Yeah, parading around your son, the successful lawyer never hurts in gathering support,” he snorts.

“It’s nothing like that,” his mother retorts, her eyes narrow, “I just want you to meet some new people.”

Ben huffs out a laugh, “in case you forgot, I’m only here since I’m on house arrest,” he pauses, raising an eyebrow at her, “I’m guessing that’s something you don’t want anyone to know.”

“Hey, kid,” his father voice rumble, “you chose to come here.”

Ben shakes his head, mumbling, “I’m beginning to regret that now.”

He refuses to let them parade him around. Which is why he retreats to the bar. He is not going to engage in this, whatever this is.

“Mr. Solo,” a soft feminine voice sounds from behind him.

He slowly turns to find a young woman standing in front of him, brown hair frames her freckled face, bright hazel eyes meet his, only to quickly look down on the ground between them as a slight blush tints her cheeks. His eyes sweep over her body, lean frame, narrow waist, she looks skinny, a bit too skinny, like she hasn’t been properly nourished. The floral dress hangs loose on her frame, it’s a size too big for her. It’s cheap, he can tell, probably bought at a low-end department store.

He can also tell that she doesn’t belong here. She’s doesn’t fit the description of his mother’s usual guests.

“My mother sent you over?” He’s not in the mood to play any of his mother’s games.

Her eyes flicker up to his again as a slight summer breeze comes through the garden, flowing through her hair, and that’s when he smells it. Sweet. Like honey mixed with his favorite brand of Swiss Chocolate, and tiny hint a salty ocean breeze just before a storm. Clean and fresh.

Omega.

His nostrils flare as he drinks in her scent.

She seems to have a similar reaction, her hazel eyes widening as she breathes in through her nose.

He takes a deep breath in, through his mouth, regaining his composure, “tell her that I’m not interested,” he says, eyes going over her one last time before he turns back to the bar grabbing the whiskey he ordered, taking a big gulp of it.

“Excuse me?” her voice sounds again, this time with a hint of annoyance.

He turns around again, eyes narrow, “I don’t care what her reason for sending you over here is,” he huffs out an annoyed breath, “I’m not interested.”

At that her stance changes, she straightens up, almost puffing her chest out, her eyes regard him with a sort of intensity he has never seen an Omega exude before, “Mr. Solo, I’m a police officer,” she starts, her tone now laced with annoyance, and even a hint of anger, “I merely came over to introduce myself since I’m tasked with your security.”

He smirks, a small snicker escaping his lips. He can’t help it. He really can’t. It’s just so extremely laughable that the young woman in front him is supposed to be his security. Not that she’s really there to protect him, like she seems to think. The police are only there to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, like try to take off his ankle bracelet and skip town.

“Is this funny to you?” she starts, her soft pink lips forming in an annoyed snarl, “no matter what you may think, I graduated at the top of my class from the academy, and I..”

“I’m sure you did,” he interrupts, taking a step closer to her, “I am sure you are very capable,” his lips turn up into another smirk.

As he steps closer, she takes a step back, something that makes his smirk grow even wider, “Ben Solo,” he extends his hand.

“Officer Rey Niima,” she takes his hand, squeezing it a bit too hard as they shake.

Ben can’t help but shake his head, still smirking. It’s like she is trying to portray some sort if dominance. Like she is trying to pretend that she is in charge.

Well, if she wants to play, he thinks to himself as he pulls his hand towards himself still holding a tight grip on hers, making her loose her balance, stumbling face first into his chest.

She is fumbling trying to find balance again, her hands pushing at his chest, trying to get away from him.

“Officer,” he purrs, his hand stroking the side of her jaw, fingers gently caressing down her neck, stopping just an inch above her scent gland, making her body freeze, hands splayed on his chest, “there is no need to try to play it like that. I think we both know that if I really want to,” his voice is low, rumbling through his chest,” I can take whatever I want.” He lets his thumb stroke over her gland.

She looks up at him with glassy eyes. Her sweet pink lips parted, taking in big pants of air. Ben’s chest rumbles, a small groan resonating deep down, having her like this is so much better than her attempt at pretending to be in charge.

It takes her a few moments, just staring up at him, before she visibly snaps out of it, pushing herself back, putting distance between them.

“See you around, Officer,” he winks at her as he turns on his heel, walking away, before she has the chance to say anything in response.

***

Alpha Asshole.

She was only trying to be polite, to introduce herself. It was a nice thing to do. And he just acted like the biggest asshole she had ever met.

Just the things he was trying to imply, and the things he outright said. Like he was some strong Alpha and she was only a weak Omega. Like he had power over her.

She is still fuming as she is settled over a beer at Maz’s Bar. She needs a drink or two.

A high wolf-whistle pulls her from her thoughts. Oh, no. She is not in the mood. She puts on the bitchiest cop face she can muster before she turns around, ready to give the source of the whistle a piece of her mind. Her face softens as a smirking Rose and Finn approaches her.

“Wow, you look great,” Finn says as Rey pulls them both into a hug.

Rose shrugs, “still think it’s a bit big for you, but it works.”

“Thanks for the loan, Rose,” Rey smiles at her as her two friends, and fellow Omegas, takes a seat next to her.

Rose is right, it is a bit big for her. But Chewie told her to dress casual, not to draw attention to herself, and when she heard that Senator Organa was throwing a garden party she didn’t have much other choice than to borrow something from Rose since her own wardrobe didn’t have anything remotely close to something that was appropriate for a garden party.

“Oh, you smell nice,” Rose visibly sniffs her.

She smelled like Alpha. Strong virile Alpha.

His scent was overpowering, still lingering on her even though it was hours since their encounter. Musky. Like she was in the forest, oaky and strong, like an expensive brand of whiskey, and something she couldn’t quite identify, it was fresh, almost like a citrusy scent but not sour. It had so many layers that Rey had trouble distinguishing between them. All she knew is that it smelled good, really good.

“Alpha?” Finn wiggles his eyebrows at her.

Rey wants to sink into the ground. Or run out of the bar. It was bad enough that the scent on her was from a close and not so pleasant encounter with an Alpha, what was worse was that her friends could smell it on her.

Rey just shakes her head. Doesn’t matter how nice his scent is. Or how good he looked. Tall. Broad shoulders. Muscles, visible even from under his suit. She blushes as she thinks about how his chest felt when she touched it. So firm and strong.

And his eyes, the intensity as he looked at her.

Rose gasps, grabbing Rey’s shoulder, shaking her out of her thoughts, “you’ve finally met someone you like.”

Rey blushes, looking down into the drink in front of her as she sighs, “he’s a complete jerk.”

“Ahh, that’s too bad,” Rose sighs, “his scent is really nice.”

Finn and Rose are her best friends. She has entrusted them with her secrets, her hopes and dreams.

They knew Rey had never met an Alpha she was attracted to. She had of course met Alphas whose scent appealed to her, and that looked good, but nothing that really attracted her. She had admitted this fact on a few occasions, after one too many drinks.

Meeting an Alpha was not at the top of her list of priorities anyway. Sometimes in weak moments, like during her heats or after to many drinks, she does think about what it would be like though. To be with someone, a strong Alpha with an overpowering amazing scent.

She shakes her head resolutely pulling herself from her thoughts.

Ben Solo is an entitled Alpha who thinks too highly of himself, a complete jerk. Even if he wasn’t a jerk, it’s her job to provide security at the estate and keep an eye on him.

Rey fully intends to be the best at her job.

***

It’s a bit too much for him. Being home.

For the first time in his life, or for as long as he can remember, both his parents are in the same place for a longer period of time. They were at home all the time now. His father semi-retired, only went into the office now and again, and his mother had moved her office into the house.

When he was a child they were barely around, his mother busy with changing the world, and his father busy flying around it.

They were never there. Just popping in sometimes, and rarely at the same time. How they maintained a relationship and were still married after all these years was baffling to him.

Now he had to deal with them both and at the same time. Not something he was interested in doing. So instead of taking his old bedroom in the main house, he moved into a smaller cottage close to the tennis courts at the estate. Keeping some distance would be good.

Not that he got much distance. His mother insisted on having dinner together like a family. He wasn’t left with much other choice than to accept the arrangement of having a long awkward dinner with them every night.

It was the only reason he saw for ever going near the main house. During the day he usually kept to himself at the other end of the estate, either staying inside, working, or taking a walk through the small forest, next to the lake, close to the property line.

He knew where the line was, and that he was to remain inside it. He had no reason to push it, he respected his agreement with the police for now. Just walking close to the invisible line is as close as he gets to something thrilling happening in his life these days. Or that is until he a few weeks into his stay notices that he is being followed as he takes his usual walk.

Her scent hits him before he sees her. Just the sweet hint of it tickling his nostrils.

She should know better. Being out in the woods, trying to keep herself hidden, but her scent is giving her away. It’s almost like she wants him to hunt her. Like she wants to be his prey.

If they weren’t living in the 21st century she would have been. He would have hunted her down. Taken her.

Maybe he should. Not the part where he just takes her without consent, he’s a gentleman, not a complete animal. But he could hunt her down. Make her heart race. Give her the experience of being prey to a strong Alpha. Part of him feels like she would like that, no matter how much he sensed that she tried to deny her natural instincts during their meeting at the garden party.

It’s not really a conscious choice he makes as he taps into his instincts. The Alpha in him wants to hunt the Omega down.

So he does, turning around, and just by following her scent he finds her in a clearing.

She doesn’t see him until it’s too late, his hands are at her hips, moving her, forcefully using his body to pin her to the nearest tree.

She tries to fight him off, her arms pushing at him, her chest heaving, frustrated puffs of air leaving her as she can’t get him to move an inch.

“You really should know better,” he growls down at her.

A frustrated growl resonates low in her chest, she is panting, a small sheen of sweat forming at her forehead from trying to fight his hold on her, “you can’t go outside the property line,” she whimpers, frustrated.

Like that is a good enough justification for following him through the woods.

“I know damn well where the line is, Omega,” he growls.

She looks up at him, eyes wide. She has stopped resisting. Accepting that his hold on her is too strong.

“It’s my job..” she starts, weakly.

“Your job..” he interrupts her, pushing her harder into the tree, “is according to yourself to provide security, which you can clearly see that I’m more than capable of handling myself,” he breathes out as a thick layer of her scent assaults him, “and we both know it’s not security you are here for, you are here to keep an eye on me, aren’t you?”

She whimpers beneath him as she tries to fight his hold on her again, resigning with a frustrated huff of air from her nostrils, “yes.”

“Your colleague, the Beta, has better senses, keeping his distance, and he still manages to keep an eye on me,” Ben says as he moves his hand down her thigh, “so, I’m guessing it’s not the only reason for following me through the woods, Omega,” he growls, his hand now moving dangerously close to where he knows slick is pooling. He can smell it. Her body is reacting to this. It’s pure instinct. She is preparing for him. It’s one of her body’s most basic primitive instincts.

As her scent invades him, as she becomes more pliant under him, he feels himself grow, starting to push against the fabric of his jeans.

“I feel it too,” he whispers hotly as he slides his leg between her thighs.

Her reaction is not what he expected though. She starts struggling again, “get off me, Alpha prick,” she shouts.

It’s disarms him. Makes him release his hold on her and step away, regarding her flushed and angry complexion.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” she fumes, eyes bulging.

Surprisingly, even to himself, he smiles, “we are supposed to act so civil around each other without our designations dictating anything,” he huffs out a bitter laugh, “what’s not taken into consideration is our biology, as much as we would all like to think we can control ourselves, we both know that I would fucking devour you if I were in rut, and you would beg for my knot if you were in heat.” 

A deep rouge spreads across her face as she looks away from him. It’s cute, in a way, Ben thinks as he looks at her. She is obviously not used to talking about their most primitive and basic instincts.

“I know I have no right to say this, it’s the law, my mother’s doing,” he scoffs, something that makes her look at him again, face still flushed in a deep red color, “but you really shouldn’t be here when I’m getting close to rut,” he pauses, looking into her eyes, “if I find you alone like this then, I won’t be able to stop.”

He wouldn’t mind having her alone during his rut.

He would love feeling her underneath him, hearing her moans, having the amazing scent she omits blinding his senses. He would fuck her until she was begging for his knot, and he would knot her, and he wouldn’t stop. He would fuck her until she was so raw and sore, she was crying.

She nods.

“Good,” he sighs, “same with the week before your heat.”

To his surprise her mouth twists, brows furrowing, “I can’t take two weeks off work, the one where I actually have my heat is enough.”

“You really should,” he interjects. Her scent is strong. He knows that when she is close to her heat she will trigger him.

“Chewie has never said anything about the fact that I work the week before my heat, I even started my heat at work once, and it didn’t bother him,” she objects, shaking her head at him.

Ben snorts, “Chewie is old and mated, and you could be his daughter, or grand-daughter for that matter,” he fixes his gaze at her, “he would never touch you, no matter how far gone into heat you are.”

“So you’re just a misogynistic asshole then,” she spits, eyes wide, a sort of fire in them, “just because I’m Omega I have to hide away even when I’m not in heat” she regards him, eyes narrowing, “no wonder your parents never made it public they had a son when he is such an ass that contradicts everything they have worked for.”

She shouldn’t have said that. She probably realizes that herself as she is pinned to the ground unable to move.

“You think I’m a disappointment to them,” he hisses, his mouth is close to her ear, heavy pants meeting her neck, “you have no idea,” he spits before he lets her go, leaving her panting on the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

His mother’s continued insistence on nightly dinners soon develops to include lunches, and her coming to his door wanting to take a walk with him around the property. It’s like it’s her mission to not give Ben a minute alone. She even involves his father, making the poor old sod invite Ben to play tennis. Something Ben is sure his father has never played before, even if he’s had a tennis court right there on his property for years.

Ben is sure he is going to give his father a heart attack one day if they continue with the new routine of playing tennis several times a week. Han has never been the most athletic type, and playing against Ben, who took lessons in his youth, mostly results in Han running all over the place in a futile attempt to catch Ben’s serves.

Choosing to stay at his parents’ house had been out of convenience, to place himself a safe distance from of the city, so there would be no speculation about his whereabouts later.

It was only meant to be for a short while, and he thought that his parents would be away for most of the time, like they had when he was a child.

Their newfound interest in spending time with him is well over twenty years too late. What thirteen-year-old Ben wouldn’t give to have his parent’s attention and support, thirty-five-year-old Ben on the other hand just wish they would leave him alone. He knows their sudden interest in him is not because they actually care, they always have an agenda, or at least his mother does, something his father usually goes along with.

Just how calculating his parents can be does again make itself clear during dinner one night.

It’s usually just small talk, nothing substantial, in their exchanges. Or that is until his mother takes it upon herself to break their unspoken agreement of keeping the conversation limited.

It starts so innocent, like most of her advances, “I just heard that Bazine Netal graduated from law school,” she says with a tone in her voice, that Ben knows all too well, she wants something from him, “the Netal’s mentioned she is looking for a job.”

“I can put in a good word for her at some of the major firms,” he replies. It’s like it has always been in their circle, favors exchanged. God forbid any of the spoiled brats actually had to work to earn a place at the table.

Leia gives him warm smile in exchange, “Lovely, I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”

Ben gives her a curt nod. Doing small favors here and there, and getting favors in return, is part of their way of life, it’s how they all remain so wealthy and in positions of power. He understands that, and has no problem going along with that aspect of his interaction with his parents.

“And I also heard that Amilyn Holdo’s daughter is back in town,” she pauses, gaze focusing on Ben, “both very lovely girls from respectable families.”

Ben has to fight the urge to roll his eyes at her, opting for nodding instead. Whatever she was plotting was about to make itself very clear.

When Ben doesn’t reply other than politely nodding, she continues, “while you’re here, taking a lovely young lady out to dinner is a nice way to spend your time.”

Ben’s eyebrows raise, skeptically, “not sure the police will agree to let me leave the property.”

His mother waves her hand in the air, like she is brushing away Ben’s last remark.

Ben can’t help but smirk. Just the thought of Leia Organa exerting her power, convincing both the Chandrila and Coruscant police departments to allow her son out of house arrest to go on a date, makes him want to laugh. It’s just the type of thing his mother would do.

Ben barely pays attention to the rest of his mother’s monologue.

His mother would of course love it if Ben married a pretty woman from a respectable family, it’s not the first time she has hinted at Ben going on a date with one of her friends’ daughters.

Ben has always managed to get out of it. He’s just not interested in taking one of his mother’s friends’ daughters on a date. They’re nice girls, usually nothing wrong with their looks or intelligence, he just doesn’t find them interesting enough to even pay attention to them the few times they have interacted over the years.

***

It’s just her luck that she is tasked with watching the most infuriating man she has encountered in her entire life.

It’s like he takes great pleasure in making her uncomfortable, which is why she tries to keep her distance from him as best she can after their encounter in the woods.

Her only problem is that life sometimes has a cruel streak, forcing her into situations she would much rather avoid. As it does when she on her nightly walk around the property find said infuriating man sitting on the grass on a vantage point, where there is a good view of the entire property, with a bottle of wine in his hand.

“Officer,” he acknowledges her presence when she’s a few feet behind him.

“Mr. Solo,” she replies. He might be an infuriating asshole, but that doesn’t mean she won’t act civil around him.

His head turns back flashing her a small smirk, “please, join me,” he says, lifting his hand holding the bottle.

“I’m working,” she replies.

He snorts, “I’m making your job of keeping an eye on me very easy for you right now.”

She can’t argue with that, so she does, against her better judgement, sit down next to him on the grass, careful to keep some distance from him.

“I didn’t take you for the ‘drinking alone in the dark’ type,” she comments.

“Ah, well,” he snickers, “I think anyone who regularly has to sit through dinner with my mother would eventually turn to drinking.”

They end up sitting there is silence for several minutes, the only sounds filling the night air, crickets, and him occasionally taking a gulp from the bottle.

Rey regards him, a slight furrow of her brows, “she’s an impressive woman.”

He sighs, “that she is,” an almost melancholic tone in his voice.

“You don’t like being home,” she states. It’s more of a question.

His head turns to her, gaze sweeping over her face before it meets her eyes with the sort of dark intensity that makes Rey want to look away.

“This isn’t really my home,” he says, “haven’t lived here since I was sent away to boarding school at thirteen.”

“Where is your home then?”

His brows slightly furrow, sighing he says, “I guess I don’t really have somewhere I would consider my home.”

She gives him a small smile. She understands that feeling. She’s had places that she’s lived, but never something she would call home.

“What about you?” he asks, “where are you from?”

“Jakku, I guess,” she replies, knowing that he has probably never heard of the place. His raised eyebrows confirms it.

“It’s in the middle of nowhere,” she continues, “pretty much just a small main street with the Niima convenience store and a few junkyards, mostly hillbillies brewing moonshine living there,” a small laugh escape her, it really is in the middle of nowhere.

“Family business?” he enquires, “the convenience store,” he continues as Rey gives him a confused look in return.

She just shakes her head.

She is not going to tell him that her last name does come from that business, and not because she has any familial relation to it but because she was found in the restroom there when she was just a few months old. Telling him that would only lead to talking about parts of her life that she has never shared with anyone, how she fought through her circumstances and survived.

She survived foster care. She has gone through most of her life without any support system. She even presented without any support, or help. She graduated high school and the police academy with no help. She did it all by herself, and against all odds.

No one ever had her back, or that was until she moved to Chandrila, and had Chewie, Lando and Poe as her colleagues, and made friends with Finn and Rose. She had a support system now. She knew they would be there for her. But even if they weren’t, she was strong.

Sharing this with Ben Solo is not at the top of her list of things she wants to do, even if he’s not acting like a complete ass right now.

After a few beats of silence, she says, “I just ended up here in Chandrila, and I guess it’s my home now.”

“I pegged you for the type that would enjoy a big city more,” he says, a sense of curiosity in his tone.

She gives him a confused look back. He takes a big gulp of his wine, then tilting his head to the side, “you just don’t strike me as the type that enjoys small town life, especially as a cop,” he pauses, “must be quite boring most days.”

She huffs, shaking her head in resignation, “yeah, but I have one thing working against me if I want to get a job in a big city.”

“What is that?” he asks, regarding her curiously.

“My designation,” she huffs again. Not really sure when she decided to have what was becoming something very close to a heart-to-heart with him.

“Ah,” a small smile at his lips, “they’re scared that an Omega can’t hold her own against an Alpha.”

“Pretty much,” she sighs.

He nods, “well, I don’t think you’d be such a bad police officer in the big city,” he huff out a laugh, “I’ve gone up against a few of them in court, and no matter their designation it doesn’t really stop them from screwing up.”

She laughs at his statement.

Maybe she was a bit quick to judge after their first interaction at the garden party. He was a complete ass that day. And again, in the woods. Even though their interaction then started out as basically a continuation of his behavior at the garden party, there was something else there. It would have been very easy for him to do whatever he wanted with her, that much was clear to her when she felt his strength as he rendered her completely helpless, unable to fight him off, when pinning her to the tree and the ground.

The fact that he didn’t do anything to hurt her, that he stepped away even when he was obviously upset at her remarks, and how he is actually acting quite nice towards her now, makes Rey question if her initial perception of him is correct

***

With the way his parents are acting he can’t continue to stay here. It’s only going to escalate, and probably end badly.

If he continued to stay with them, it would undoubtedly end in a way that was hard to remedy. There was too much history and unresolved tension between them. All it took was a tiny spark, and they would end up in a fight with words exchanged that they couldn’t take back.

“I would like to go back to Coruscant,” Ben says, he has made up his mind, continuing to stay at his parents is not an option.

“Our agreement is that you stay here,” she responds, voice firm and authoritative.

“Our agreement is that I help you,” he responds, with an equally firm and authoritative tone to his voice, “I chose to come here, now I’m saying that I have changed my mind, I would like to stay in my apartment until our agreement is finalized.” 

She regards him with narrow eyes, measuring him up and down, until her gaze fix on his eyes, staring him down.

This is going to turn into a pissing match, he can tell. She is not going to give in easily.

As Ben keeps her stare, he knows he has met his match.

Captain Phasma of the Coruscant Police is not one to back down, she is an Alpha is every sense of the word, and an accomplished and decorated officer.

“You are in no position to make demands,” she says.

Ben snorts, “you wouldn’t even have case if it wasn’t for me.”

Phasma lets her eyes wander around the living room of the cottage he is staying in, settling on Ben again, “there are worse places you could have been detained, you’re lucky that we made a deal with you,” she says, raising her eyebrows at him, “now, if there aren’t any other complaints,” Phasma continues, “let’s go over the plan.”

***

Rey doesn’t deliberately avoid him anymore. Their conversation the other day did make her perception of him change. Perhaps he wasn’t the complete asshole she initially thought. Acting civil around each other is good, but they’re not friends so she doesn’t outright seek him out after that. However, she still ends up in his presence just days after.

“Leia Organa just invited us for dinner,” Poe says when he comes to relive her late in the afternoon. 

And that is how Rey ends up waking into the dining room, with Poe, Chewie and Lando for the Organa-Solo family dinner that night.

“I wasn’t informed that we are having guests,” Ben snarls, a strange almost feral growl resonating deep in his chest. He’s pushing his chair back standing up regarding the obviously unwelcomed guests with narrow eyes.

Leia’s eyes bore into him, “when being supported by the community, and especially the police department, inviting them to dinner is the least we can do.”

Ben snorts, looking between the additions to their dinner, before fixing his eyes at Leia, “our agreement is that I come to dinner with you and dad, not for you to increase the headcount as you please.”

Rey feels awkward. Being in the middle of a family discussion is not what she wants. She looks over at Poe and it’s obviously not what he wants either.

“Excuse my son,” Leia’s smooth and authoritative voice sounds, looking from Ben to Poe, Rey, Chewie and Lando, “we are delighted to have you as guests this evening.”

Surprisingly Ben’s features, who up until now had looked pretty upset that they had guests for dinner, changes, a smile not quite reaching his eyes spreads across his lips, “of course, mother,” his voice strained as he regards Leia, “how rude of me,” he turns his attentions to Poe, and then Rey, “I appreciate you being here,” he pauses,” it’s a real treat seeing that what I pay in taxes go to a noble cause.”

“Benjamin,” Leia exclaims.

Ben smirks, “I don’t inhabit the same tactfulness as my mother, so I won’t pretend that I like having the police watching my every move.”

Rey swallows. A sense of weariness spreading through her.

“Sit down and shut up,” Han murmurs, keeping his eyes fixed on his son.

“I don’t believe anyone asked for you opinion,” Ben responds, his voice hard, almost menacing.

“Maybe you should have asked for my opinion before you ended up with the police taking an interest in you,” Han responds, his tone a bit firmer, trying to match his son.

Ben suddenly looks a bit uncomfortable, probably from the way his parents are looking at him, “I’ll be out of here soon enough.”

“Ben,” Leia’s voice is shaking.

It’s like the atmosphere changes with the tone in Leia’s voice. Ben’s eyes are growing narrow as he looks between his parents.

“Mother,” Ben snarls, “the only reason I’m here is out of convenience,” he pauses, dark eyes regarding her, “I told you to leave it.”

“Don’t worry about it, kiddo,” Lando says, giving her a reassuring smile.

Rey looks up at him confused.

“It actually went quite well,” he continues.

Rey shakes her head, perplexed, had he witnessed the same she had? It was the most awkward family interaction she had ever seen.

“You’re just not used to the Organa-Solo clan,” Chewie says as he comes over to their table after placing their order at the bar.

After the horrible interaction, resulting in Ben leaving before they even had a chance to take a seat, Leia conveyed that they would have to take a raincheck on dinner and that they were welcome back at a more appropriate time. It was the nicest way possible of getting them to leave.

“He looked like he was going to throw something at them, or rip their heads of or something,” Rey says, looking between the two men.

“But the fact that he didn’t,” Lando chuckles, “that is actually progress.”

“He was sad,” Rey mumbles, more to herself than to her company. Underneath all the layers of his scent, through the bitter hint of anger and frustration that had been coating it, there was also something else. Not that his demeanor gave off anything other than anger. But it was there, sadness, masking in his potent scent.

Thankfully neither of them catches what she said, and they continue talking about something else.

Rey doesn’t pay attention.

“Why is he here?” Rey asks, interrupting the two older men’s conversation.

Chewie scratches his chin, “like I told you I don’t know much,” he pauses, “something about insider trading, though that doesn’t really make much sense.”

Rey looks at him confused.

“It’s not like the kid needs to cheat the stock market, he’s quite well off already,” Chewie elaborates, “and having the local police keep a constant watch of him, house arrest with an ankle bracelet would have sufficed.”

“Yeah, doesn’t really make sense,” Lando chimes in.

There was a lot about Ben Solo that didn’t make sense.

Ben being the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, Rey had at least expected to have heard of him before. But there was nothing. No mention of a son in any of the searches she had made on them online after Chewie told her about the job.

She could of course find information about Ben Solo, but not mentioned in any connection with his parents, basically all she found was that he was a lawyer working for a large firm in the city, and he was successful, almost all the cases he took resulted in acquittal for the person he was defending.

There was no mention of him being arrested for anything either. Not one news article. Something that also didn’t make sense. If the press knew a successful lawyer had been arrested there would surely be at least one article about it, and if they knew that he is the son of Senator Organa it would be national news.

It’s just not adding up.

For the first time since the police academy, Rey feels like she is dealing with a mystery, only this one is real and not something conjured up as a learning exercise.

***

“Officer,” he’s not really surprised that the knock on his door late at night is the young Omega, “anything I can do for you?” he says, leaning against the frame.

She’s fidgeting with her fingers, biting her bottom lip, as she gives him a nervous glance.

It’s intriguing. The girl has always tried to keep her composure around him. Even when he tried to push her to lose it. Now, without him even having done anything to warrant it, she looks nervous, and not the bit of the persona she usually tries to portray.

“Why doesn’t anyone know you’re their son?” she blurts out catching him a bit off guard.

His eyebrows raise in surprise. Of all the things he thought could possibly bring her to his door late at night, that wasn’t at all what he expected. She must know that the Captain of the Coruscant Police visited him a few days ago. He fully expected her to be more intrigued by that.

When he lets several seconds pass without answering, she takes a step back, nervously biting her bottom lip, eyes not fully meeting his.

He scoffs, something of annoyance at her behavior rising in him. If he was going do something to her the space between them, that she has created, isn’t going to stop him. They both know that, so it annoys him that she acts like she is scared of him.

“Must look a bit strange from the outside,” he finally says.

She nods, eyes still peering nervously up at him without fully meeting his gaze.

Curiosity about the reason why his parents haven’t paraded him around publicly can’t be the only reason she is here.

He follows her gaze, staring into her eyes, “but that is not why you’re really here,” a small smirk building at his lips as he tests his theory.

Watching her is somewhat entertaining, how she struggles to come up with a response.

“I just..” she starts, stopping to take a deep breath, “there is nothing about your arrest in the news.”

“Who says I was arrested?” he quirks an eyebrow at her.

“You’re under house arrest and the Coruscant police has been to see you, they also mentioned something about insider trading,” she says, her eyes now fixed on him, the nervousness she displayed earlier slowly disappearing.

Of course that’s the story they gave to the local cops, it’s the same they gave to his parents. It’s the official story. He really should have seen this coming.

He has no interest in giving her anything resembling the truth and continuing entertaining her questions is not something he intends to do either.

“Officer, this has been lovely,” he says, smiling at her, “unfortunately I have to cut this short. I have a meeting I can’t miss.”

***

The mention of him having a meeting didn’t at the time alert her that anything was up, thought she did think that it was a bit strange having a meeting so late at night, she is fully prepared for a guest to arrive when she walks back towards the main gate, and that’s when she hears it, footsteps in the dark.

Turning around, she realizes he isn’t coming towards her, he is moving away from her towards the other end of the property. He was running, hastily and as silently as he could through the night.

Oh, no. Not on her watch.

She runs to her car, thinking she can follow him using the GPS tracker in his anklet, only to find that the GPS showed him to be inside the cottage.

Fuck.

He was really running.

She needed to stop him, cut him off. This couldn’t happen. She was done as a police officer if she didn’t catch up to him.

She could already see the headline; Omega cop let’s Alpha suspect get away. It would be just another testament that Omegas were weak when it came to Alphas. Something the conservative voices would use to again state that Omegas belonged at home.

Adrenaline is pulsing through her as she drives around the edge of the property. If she’s right, he should be coming out of the forest right in front of her.

To her surprise it isn’t his tall figure coming out from a clearing in the forest next to the road, it’s a car. Headlights off, driving slowly up on the road before speeding off.

Of course he had a car stashed away. That was probably why he deterred her from following him through the woods in the first place.

She huffs out a laugh. He clearly doesn’t know who he was up against.

She was one of the best drivers at the academy. She always managed to chase the suspect down during exercises.

He was not getting away.


	3. Chapter 3

Of all the places she though he was going, this was never even close to being on her list.

A biker bar, thirty minutes outside of town.

She saw him pull off the road and go inside, keeping her distance not to alert him to her presence. It’s better to catch him as he is leaving.

He’s been in there for a long time, an hour at least. It gives her a bad feeling as she sits in the car watching the door as big burly Alpha bikers come and go. A nagging feeling that he skipped out the back is growing in her.

This is not the place for her. She might consider herself strong and fearless, but even she knows that this is a terrible idea.

She should call for back-up.

She should have thought of that the moment she saw him slipping away, her mind was just clouded by the amount of adrenaline coursing through her veins. It feels like it’s too late now. How does she explain the fact that she followed him after he ran without alerting someone on the radio. No matter how much she tried to come up with an explanation, it would just look suspicious. Like she let him run and regretted it later.

She can do this.

She just needs to see that he is still in there, then she can go back to her car and wait.

She reaches into the glove compartment grabbing the scent blocker she keeps in there. It will mask her scent but not take it away completely, but it will have to do.

The place is packed. Burly men in leather drinking stale beer meets her eyes wherever she looks. The strong scent of them hits her, it’s foul, sour. It makes her want to gag as she steps further into the establishment.

He can’t be so hard to find in this crowd, he stands out, with his height, but also the fact that he’s usually dressed far nicer than this crowd.

She’s almost about to give up when she spots him a table at the back, he’s leaning back in a chair engaged in conversations with a man, pale face and red hair. His attention is on the red-haired man until his head suddenly snaps in her direction, eyes meeting hers, darkening as he looks at her.

It happens so fast that she barely has time to react, he’s in front of her, pulling her close to his side as he drags her out of the bar.

“How unbelievably stupid is it possible to be,” he hisses as he lets go of his hold on her when they’re in front of her car.

“You ran,” she responds accusatory, staring up at his narrow eyes.

“So you took it upon yourself to walk into a place filled with Alphas that wouldn’t even blink twice before passing you around like a rag doll,” he spits.

She breaks eye contact, looking down at the ground. He’s right.

“I couldn’t let you get away,” she mumbles, directed at his feet.

“You’ve really done it now,” he says, his voice still hard, but laced with a sense of resignation.

She feels his hands on her, one at her hip, pulling her closer, the other at the side of her neck moving her hair away to expose it before him. His scent assaults her as she feels his fingers stroke over her neck. He’s so close, she feels his scent overpower her. It’s stronger, more potent than before.

She doesn’t even have time to react to what is happening. His breath is tickling her skin before a sharp sting of pain as he sinks his teeth into her mating gland.

She whimpers at the sensation, the sting of his teeth breaking her skin, being replaced by his tongue lapping up the blood he has drawn, soothing her pain.

As he moves his head away from her neck, straightening up, taking a step away from her, it hits her.

She feels it. Not just the pain, but something else blossoming inside her.

Her eyes widen, she opens her mouth to speak but only a small whimper comes out as tears start to form at the corner of her eyes.

***

She just stares at him in utter shock. It’s really no surprise that she has started crying.

“Ren,” he hears from behind him.

“Hux,” he says as he turns to look at the source.

A smirk is plastered on his pasty face as he looks between Ben and Rey, “aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Ben turns to her again, her hands are at her cheeks wiping away her tears, “of course,” he says as he pulls her close to his side, “this is my Omega.”

Hux snorts out a laugh, “I never thought you were the type to keep a hussy hidden away,” his smirk is growing wider, “and bring her to a place like this.”

Ben’s eyes narrow at the man in front of him. He never liked Hux. His distaste is only growing as he looks at the way he’s smirking at them.

“I didn’t bring her here, you know how they can be,” he waves it away with a hand motion, trying to downplay her being there.

Hux laughs at his statement, “don’t let me keep you, we were practically done anyway,” he pauses, eyes raking over Rey’s form, “she obviously needs the strong hand of her Alpha,” he says with a wink.

Ben wants to strangle him. He wants to jump the pasty rat and beat the living shit out of him. His blood is boiling. It takes all the willpower he has to get Rey into the passenger seat of her car and drive away without going back into that disgusting place and make Hux suffer.

“Where are we going?” she sniffles, voice just a whisper as they drive away.

“Back to the estate,” he responds, keeping his eyes firmly at the road.

They drive the rest of the way in silence. None of them saying anything until they have pulled up next to the main house at the estate.

He has to say something. He knows what has started now.

“You should text Chewie that you won’t be able to work for the next week.”

“No.”

His head snaps to look at her. The hurt is painted so clearly all over her face.

“I claimed you,” he says, looking back at his hands, still holding onto the steering wheel, knuckles going white as he grips it harder.

It was a long shot, claiming her. Normally she would have to be in heat, and he in rut for a claiming bite to work. The only times he had heard of it working outside of those perimeters is if the Alpha and Omega are highly compatible. He didn’t know why, bat a part of him knew it would work.

“You’re going into heat,” he states, calmly. He has triggered it by claiming her.

“No,” she says again. Defiantly. Like she can will this away. Like it isn’t happening.

He sighs, “Rey.”

“NO!” her voice comes out as a shriek.

Just by her scent he can tell that she’s in the beginning stages of heat, no matter how much she tries to deny it. And it is going to be worse than any other heat she’s had if she goes through it alone. Her body will be craving him. She won’t find any real satisfaction alone. The Omega in her won’t rest until she gets his knot.

“Just saying no isn’t going to work,” he growls, “this is happening whether you like it or not, so you have to choose, I either drive you home and you go through it alone, or let me help you.”

He looks at her again. Frustrated tears are running down her cheeks, she got her arms wrapped around herself, rocking back and forth. She is still trying to pretend she isn’t going into heat.

“Choose, now,” he commands, making her stop her movements, looking back at him with wide eyes.

***

She hates this.

Curled up on the sofa in the cottage, she cries her final bitter tears at her predicament.

She truly hates her heats, she always has. And thus far this is shaping up to be the worst one.

It came on so quickly. She felt fine just minutes ago. Now she’s sweating, cramping, and slick has started to seep through her underwear. Her clothes feel like sandpaper on her skin.

It’s all so uncomfortable.

She didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. She fought her instincts of begging him to take care of her and exposing her neck to him so he could regard his handywork. She just opened the door of the car and walked resolutely towards the cottage, laying down on the sofa clutching her stomach once inside.

She has heard stories of this before, it was like urban legends, she had never been sure if it was true or not.

Omegas claimed by an Alpha, and the Alpha’s refusal to make the Omega their mate by letting the Omega bite their mating gland back. It was always stories of how they had spent their heat and rut together, and how the Alpha tricked the Omega, then only completing the claiming. Thus, leaving the Omega completely at their will while the Alpha was still free to do as they pleased.

The worst stories involved one Alpha claiming several Omegas then leaving them with no prospects of finding a mate or even another Alpha to help them through their heats, after the Alpha who claimed them grew tired of them.

They were tainted, the Alpha’s mark deterring all other Alphas from them. If they weren’t together it would fade and the Alpha’s scent would grow weaker on them, depending on how strong the Alpha was. But it would always be there, and by nature all other Alphas would sense it, a part of their brain not allowing them to take another Alpha’s claimed Omega.

She hadn’t even been close to her heat, so he shouldn’t have been able to claim her. It shouldn’t have worked. But it had. She felt it.

Ben was a strong Alpha, she felt him stronger than any other Alpha she had encountered, his scent and claim on her wouldn’t easily fade. She was bound to him now, not even given a choice in the matter.

“Rey,” his voice pulls her from her thoughts. Her body freezes as he hunkers down next to her.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he continues, his deep voice taking on a soft tone, non-threatening.

She wants to scream back at him that he already has. He has taken away her choice.

She looks up at him, wiping her tears, he’s holding a bottle of water and some blankets, “you should drink something, and I brought you these” he offers her the blankets, “In case you want to..” his voice trails off as she grabs the items from his hands, sitting up and scooting as far away from him as she possibly can.

“Bedroom is down the hall, first door on the right,” he says.

Of course he knows what she needs. Her growing desire to nest.

She really fucking hates this.

She knows she is only making it harder for herself by fighting her instincts, so with a frustrated growl she grabs the blankets and walks down the hall.

He keeps his distance leaning against the doorframe as she goes to work on his bed, he doesn’t even protest when she after arranging the pillows, bedding and blankets just as she wants it, goes to work on his wardrobe, pulling out clothes and adding them to her nest.

“You can have this too, if you want,” he says handing her the shirt he was wearing, after she has pulled all the clothes she wanted from his wardrobe but still isn’t satisfied, letting out a frustrated growl as she keeps rearranging the items in the nest she has made on the bed.

She didn’t even notice him talking his shirt off. And she hates how much seeing his naked chest affects her, slick starting to run down her thighs just at the sight.

She grabs the shirt from him, biting down at her bottom lip as she lifts the shirt and buries her face in it, inhaling his scent, before she wraps his shirt around a pillow, briefly regarding her work, deeming it satisfactory.

She’s getting warmer, her skin tingling, clothes are sticking uncomfortably to her body.

She can’t fight it any longer, she doesn’t have the energy, so she starts stripping out of her clothes, letting each item slowly fall to the floor, exposing her flushed skin. As the cool air in the room hits her damp skin she sighs in relief.

She knows he’s watching her. In any other circumstance she would be embarrassed even at the thought of exposing herself like this to another person. She knows she doesn’t have what would be considered the perfect Omega body, she’s too skinny and her breast are too small.

“It’s perfect,” his deep voice sounds from behind her.

Her inner Omega purrs at that. She has pleased Alpha.

“Rey,” the sound of her name coming from his lips in his deep voice does something to her, it goes straight to her core, another batch of slick coating her inner thighs. She turns around to look up at him. Apart from his eyes darkening at the sight of her naked body, his face is soft, “do you want this?”

The rational part of her can’t really understand why he’s asking.

He has already claimed her, and he’s got her alone in his bedroom, slick running down her thighs, so there is nothing standing in the way of him taking her whichever way he wants.

She knows it won’t be long before she loses her faculties.

She’ll soon become a whimpering mess, only focused on satisfying her need, giving into her instincts, begging for him to take care of her.

It’s just the way that this is happening, so fast and without any real conversations about it beforehand that is bothering her.

They barely even know each other.


	4. Chapter 4

He moves closer, hands finding her hips, gently, cautious not to move too quickly or hold her too hard.

He can see the muscles in her body straining the closer he gets to her.

She’s scared.

He can’t blame her for that. He hasn’t done anything to earn her trust, to make her feel comfortable around him. He has done the complete opposite mostly, taunting her, using her reactions as a sort of entertainment.

She’s fighting it, still. But she needs him now, it will only be more uncomfortable for her without him.

He pulls her closer, the flushed skin on her naked chest against him, he moves his head to her neck, nose brushing her skin, lips finding her gland, tongue tracing the indentation of his teeth.

A small whimper escapes her.

He needs her to stop fighting it, she needs to relax and give in to her instincts, allow him to take care of her.

Her skin is hot, damp with sweat. The light flexing of her muscles has turned into trembles, her entire body shivering. Her hands move, clutching her lower stomach as she presses her lips firmly together, a pained expression on her face.

“Let me take care of you,” he murmurs.

She looks up at him hesitantly, slightly nodding, before she moves over to the bed and with trembling hands and legs crawling on top of it, coming to rest in the middle of the nest she has made, staying on her hands and knees, spreading her legs and arching her back, giving him a full view of her glistening cunt.

He’s not used to Omegas being like her.

The ones he has encountered and been with before have naturally been more submissive, not constantly fighting their biology.

She is different in the way she acts. She is fighting her instincts at every turn.

But even if she is fighting her instincts, she isn’t instinctively as submissive as other Omegas, she is headstrong and fearless.

That much is obvious.

She walked into a bar filled with Alphas without any visible concern for her personal safety, she has also had no trouble trying to stand up to him the times they have interacted.

There is also something else about her, something he can’t quite put his finger on.

So her presenting herself to him in what is considered a very traditional manner takes him a bit by surprise.

Maybe she doesn’t normally like to abide by what is considered the traditional roles of Alphas and Omegas but prefers it in the bedroom.

He’s not going to question it further, it’s obvious that she needs relief now, her trembling body is practically dripping with sweat and she’s obviously in pain.

She avoids looking as he removes the rest of his clothes, almost demonstratively looking away as he unfastens his belt. Another thing that separates her from other Omegas, most Omegas in heat wouldn’t be able to look away when faced with an Alpha’s cock, they would be salivating at the mere sight, and start to beg for it.

But she doesn’t look, and she doesn’t beg. She just remains in the position she assumed when crawling up on the bed, keeping her head facing away from him.

He would prefer her to be more relaxed and to actually look at him, he does however know that now is not the time to drag this out. Her current condition won’t allow for it; besides they’ll spend the next few days in each other’s company, she will probably get more comfortable in that time.

He lets his hands stroke over her hips after he has moved up on the bed behind her.

“Just get it in there,” she hisses through gritted teeth.

He doesn’t need telling twice.

He lines up, the tip of his cock angled between her slick folds. She could probably do with his fingers first, but she is wet enough, and she is made to take him, as long as he takes it slow in the beginning he won’t hurt her.

He’s meeting more resistance than he expected, she is very tight, tighter than anything he has felt before, it feels divine as he presses the tip of his cock as gently as he can into her.

He’s barely two inches into her when he feels something, like something is tearing as he tries to push past it.

“Fuck,” he curses, pulling out and sitting back on his haunches when realization dawn on him.

It couldn’t be. She was younger than him, but not that young. She was in her mid-twenties if he had to guess, so he finds it a bit hard to believe. But looking down at his still hard cock between his legs, a small sheen of blood coating the tip, he knows.

“Fuck,” he curses again, something that makes her turn around to look at him.

If she seemed scared before it’s nothing compared to what she looks like now, she looks absolutely terrified.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice shaking.

She’s apologizing like she has done something wrong.

Ben just shakes his head as he reaches out for her, pulling her closer to him.

There is a lot of things he could, and should, say.

But instead of saying anything, he places his hand at the back of her head, leaning back to look at her, giving her a hesitant smile. Somehow that is enough for her to visibly relax giving him a small smile back. Her hand is at his cheek, fingers hesitantly meeting his skin, he moves closer just a bit, still leaving some space between them.

She lets her fingers stroke his cheek, her smile getting wider as they look at each other.

He almost jumps back in surprise when she closes the distance between them, her soft pink lips meeting his. Like her smile, it’s hesitant at first, her soft lips just gently pressing against his.

The taste of her is sweet, just like her scent.

He has tried to ignore it, the way she smells now. Since the first time they met she has always smelled good to him, but that was nothing compared to what it was now. Her scent was so strong, so all consuming, he had trouble thinking straight when he focused on it. So to keep himself level headed he has tried not to focus on it.

That was all forgotten now that he tastes her.

He lets himself dive into the essence of her, drinks in her scent until it fills him up completely.

Fuck.

If her scent is this good and her lips tastes this good, he wonders how good she will taste elsewhere.

Just the thought of tasting and scenting every inch of her skin, of burying his head between her slick thighs, licking into her sweet cunt, has him so hard so it feels like he is about to burst.

Every cell of his body is screaming for him to pounce on her, and it takes all the willpower he can muster not to.

Instead he opens his lips, tongue swiping over hers in a plea for her to let him in, and she does, mouth opening, allowing him entrance.

Kissing is something they arguably should have started with, and he now wonders why he didn’t. She is more relaxed now as he lays her back on the bed, slotting his hips between her open legs. Her previous way of acting, so traditional and hastily, he now knows was because she is lacking experience. It was not because she wanted it like that, it was because it was probably the way she thought they were supposed to do it.

He’s got nothing against doing it that way, but it’s not really the best way to start when she’s inexperienced.

He moves his hand between them, stroking down her stomach, over her mound, before reaching its destination. She is not looking too well, so he knows he can’t drag this out, but he still wants it to feel good and not too rushed for her.

Applying light pressure to her clit with his thumb while pushing two of his fingers into her seems to be doing wonders, her breathing is picking up, small moans escaping her lips as he lets his fingers slide into her hole.

“Alpha,” she whimpers.

That has to be the first time she has called him that. The first time she has let that slip from her lips.

He knows that this won’t really satisfy her, it will be like using a glass of water to put out a house fire, still his fingers moves with more purpose, his thumb circling her clit as his fingers curl inside her, finding the spot he knows will make her toes curl.

He was prepared for a reaction, but not as powerful as the reaction he gets.

She is practically screaming as her back arches, head thrown back into the pillows as the walls of her cunt convulse around his fingers.

She’s pliant under him after her orgasm subsides and he retracts his hand from her, grabbing his cock, giving it a few light strokes coating it with her slick. As he finds her opening, gently pushing into her, he feels her hand at his shoulders, fingernails digging into them.

He’s panting, hot breath fanning over her face as he gently pushes more and more of his length into her, it’s still so tight. He can feel his cock stretching her out, making her body slowly accustomed to him, and finally with a groan he bottoms out, his cock nestled fully inside her.

It’s a tight fit, and he can tell that it is a bit uncomfortable for her by the furrow of her brow, creating creases on her forehead. Her eyes are closed, as she takes deep breaths with her mouth. 

He stays like that, giving her time. He lets his hand cup her cheek, fingers gently stroking over it as he moves his head down to capture her lips in a kiss. His full lips open, ragged breaths against hers as he kisses her with a force that leaves them both breathless. 

It’s enough of a distraction to make her relax. The muscles inside her hugging him so tightly slightly loosen, so he starts to move carefully.

He’s all around her, his body flush against hers, his hands gripping the underside of her thighs as he thrusts into her. Her hands grip his shoulders holding onto him as his thrusts becomes deeper. It takes all the willpower he has not to fuck her hard into the mattress.

He groans, she feels so good.

Just knowing that she has never been touched by any other man. Not by any other Alpha. It gives him a sense of satisfaction he never knew he could feel before.

He kisses her neck as he thrusts harder and deeper into her, making her gasp as he continues hitting just the right spot making her convulse around him, high pitched moans leaving her lips. Her tight convulsing cunt around him is all it takes, and with a final deep thrust, he spills into her and his knot swells, locking them together.

For a few moments it’s pure bliss, all he feels is her, the way her cunt is milking his cock, how he fills her inside, her hot body underneath him. Absentmindedly he realizes that they can’t stay like this, he’ll probably crush her by the time his knot deflates, so he carefully moves them, so they are laying on their sides.

She looks better now, more relaxed. Her eyelids flutter, slowly closing. He knows it won’t last for long, so she needs all the rest she can get.

He’s been focused mostly on the practical part, on ensuring that she gets what she needs. Now as he watches her sleep, his mind drifts.

She would never understand. Even if he tried to explain.

He claimed her without her consent, so she probably won’t even want to listen to what he has to say now.

He doesn’t dwell further on his actions, he just pulls her closer, closing his eyes, and focus on the feeling of her against him.


	5. Chapter 5

He’s gone. It’s the first thing she notice when she wakes.

He offered to help her, to take care of her. He wouldn’t leave her, would he?

An acute sense of distress rises in her. She needs him. She has never felt like this before, so dependent on someone else.

She must have gotten a few hours of sleep, but the soothing feeling her slumber gave her is now gone. She can feel it staring again, her stupid heat rearing its ugly head once more.

Having him did really help. She has never felt so satisfied during a heat before, and never gotten so much rest during it without the symptoms taking over again.

Before just the thought of spending her heat with an Alpha, of taking a knot, horrified her. She knew it was natural, but for her it was the most unnatural and frankly repulsing thing she could ever imagine.

Now she does however crave it, and the thought of him possibly leaving her like this make tears well up in her eyes. She grabs his shirt from the nest, putting it on, it still smells like him, so it soothes her a bit, before she walks on wobbly legs out of the bedroom.

Noises coming from a room next to the living room makes the distress in her slowly disappear. He’s there. And when she finds him, in the kitchen, standing behind the kitchen island preparing a plate of food it sends a wave of relief through her.

He gives her a small smile when he sees her, “I thought you might need something to eat,” he says, gesturing to the plate in front of him.

Logically she knows that, she needs sustenance. But upon seeing him, the last thing she thinks about is food. His broad naked chest is on display. She can feel a slight flush at the top of her cheeks as she lets her eyes wander over his well-defined abs up to his toned pecs. He’s got marks on his shoulders and at the top of his chest, scratches from her fingernails, from when they...

She gulps as the flush of her cheeks intensifies, a warm feeling spreading. She’s feels wet between her legs again, a desire growing in her as she takes in his physique. 

His eyes darken as he looks back at her. He can probably smell her growing arousal.

Her eyes widen as he moves away from the kitchen island, towards her, it’s not just his chest that is naked, it’s the rest of him too. She quickly looks away. Its feels almost too intimate seeing all of him so exposed, even after she has felt him against her and inside her. He makes a sound, like an amused humming, at her reaction to being faced with him in all his naked glory.

Her eyes snaps to his as his hands find her hips lifting her up to sit on the kitchen island. 

“Food first,” he says, a knowing smile playing on his lips. Of course, he can tell that her pulse has spiked, that her skin is tingling and that she’s completely soaked between her legs. 

She wants to agree with him, to say that they should eat, but all that comes out of her mouth is a high-pitched whine. She needs something else too. She needs it more than she needs to eat. He obviously feels the same since he instead of reaching for the food, reaches for the hem of the shirt covering her, lifting it up and over her head, a low groan resonating deep in his chest as she is left exposed before him.

She feels almost like prey by the way he is looking at her, his dark eyes roaming over her body, he whispers something barely audible as he dips his head down, his lips making contact with the skin on her chest. He’s all over her, lips and tongue meeting her sensitive skin. She throws her head back, moaning, as he sucks her nipple into his mouth. “Please,” she whimpers. She didn’t want to beg. She didn’t want to be so affected by him. But she is. And she can’t help but moan and beg for more.

She gasps as she feels his hand caress over her stomach down towards the throbbing bundle of nerves between her legs. Her nails are clawing at the skin on his back, fingernails digging into him. Her breaths come out in pants as his fingers rub over her sensitive bud, drawing out a small cry from her.

He looks up at her as he places kisses down her stomach. No one but him has ever looked at her with such desire. Ever touched her like this. She sees an almost mischievous flash in his eyes when he looks up at her before his head dips down between her legs. “Ohh,” she yelps when she feels his hot breath on the wet and sensitive skin, his tongue at her sensitive bud, drawing circles around it before he sucks it into his mouth. When she feels his fingers prodding at her opening she grabs his hair, pulling it. She’s moaning loudly as his fingers enter her.

His mouth and fingers sends waves of pleasure through her core. Something inside her is building up. Deep down in her groin, making her walls clench around the fingers moving inside her. “Alpha,” she breathes weakly between her moans. Her body is shivering, back arching, as the feeling takes over. She is panting, seeing starts.

After it dies down, her breath returning almost to normal, his face emerges from between her legs, hair disheveled, cheeks flushed and a sheen of wetness around his lips and on his chin. He moves up her body for his lips to find hers, pulling her into a tender kiss. “So perfect,” he whispers against her lips. His statement makes her cheeks heat, probably in a deep red color.

He leans back to look at her, “hungry?” he enquires. She doesn’t answer, as he leaned back she looked down, and for the first time she lets her eyes linger between his legs. Rey feels her cheeks burn at the sight. He is a big man in every way, she already knew that from feeling him inside her. But seeing him, his thick length standing to attention between them, is something else. It’s mesmerizing in a way, and she suddenly can’t look away.

Her core is tingling with excitement again, clenching around nothing, as she reaches out to touch him. Even though his cock is hard, it feels soft in a way, the skin silky and hot. Her touch is tentative, hesitant, at first. Her hand looks so small on his massive shaft. She can tell that the sight affects them both, his breath growing quicker as he looks while she explores. He growls. It’s like a frenzy takes over him, he’s pushing her legs wider apart, naked chest against her, lips meeting the sensitive skin on her neck, one hand pulling her hair while he uses the other to guide his cock to her throbbing core. 

She’s settled on her side with her back against his chest, they’re back on the bed. He used the time they were locked together by his knot to feed her. She ate from his fingers while being impaled by his cock, and it felt good, like he was taking care of her, tending to her. She’s still feels satisfied after he carried her to bed, settling behind her, holding her close.

“It wasn’t a family business,” she says, suddenly, “the convenience store,” she continues, “they found me there when I was a baby,” she pauses, biting down on her bottom lip, “I grew up in foster care.”

She feels the need to let him know who she is, not just the parts of her he already knows, she wants him to know the other sides of her too. Their bodies have been as close as two people can get, but they still don’t know each other, not really. She wants him to know her, and she wants to know him too. His fingers at her hip is gently stroking over her skin, and he makes a sound that she can’t quite decipher. 

“Tell me something about yourself,” she says.

He sighs, his breath meeting the back of her neck, leaving goosebumps in its wake, “well, you already know my parents,” he replies.

She shakes her head slightly, “tell me something I don’t know about you.”

“I’m thirty-five, I’m a lawyer and I normally live in Coruscant,” he replies.

She huffs, “I already know that.” She's getting a bit annoyed. He’s giving her just the most basic information about himself.

He sighs again, “they sent me to boarding school at thirteen, right after I presented.”

“That’s early,” Rey shakes her head, a bit in disbelief. Most Alphas normally presented between the age of sixteen and eighteen, there were of course those who presented a bit earlier and later than that. But presenting three years before was not within the normal range. It was very early.

It wasn’t really a deep secret about himself that he had shared with her, but it was something she didn’t know before.

“What was it like?” she asks.

He scoffs, “presenting or boarding school?”

“Presenting,” she replies. Going to boarding school was probably normal in his circles, and she could imagine the experience mostly consisted of rich kids running around without parental supervisions and teachers trying to keep them in line, to no avail. Presenting as Alpha she knew little about on the other hand, she knew what it was like for her presenting as Omega, and her other Omega friends had told them their experience, but she had never heard what it was like for an Alpha.

“To be honest, it sucked,” he says, “one day I just went into rut, and I didn’t understand what was happening at first,” surprisingly a small chuckle escapes him, “ruts can be brutal,” he pauses, “I imagine it’s similar presenting as Omega.”

She nods at that. She hates her heats, her first one especially not being a fond memory.

He’s easy to talk to when they are like this, cuddled up together in bed sharing a peaceful moment, not one of many as her need soon starts too grow again.

Over the next days he tends to her needs, he helps her clean and makes sure she eats and drinks, and they have small conversations, between the times when all she can focus on his getting his cock inside her.

When she finally emerges from the bedroom, she finds him in the kitchen, drinking coffee.

Truth is, she has been awake for a while. She’s just been trying to figure out what to do. She’s more clearheaded now. Her mind not so clouded by hormones.

She knows what happened wasn’t right. He claimed her without her consent, and even if Ben has taken care of her and given her what she needed during her heat, he forced her into that situation.

He sighs, handing her her phone, “there is a few people trying to reach you.”

She looks down at her phone, eyes widening at the missed calls and messages. Her brows furrow, “what do I tell them?” she mumbles, more to herself than to him, as her hand move to her neck stroking over her gland.

Ben looks away from her, turning around to look out the window, hands gripping the kitchen counter. “Do you want to tell them that I forced myself on you?” he asks after a few moments of silence. He sounds distant. Not like he is there in the room with her. He doesn’t turn back to look at her he just keeps staring out the window.

She feels a growing sense anger towards him for not even looking at her, “you made a choice that I have to live with,” she pauses, “no matter what I want, I’ll still be your Omega.”

She can see him gripping the counter harder, his back muscles flexing through his shirt, “I never claimed that this is fair. I merely asked what you want to do,” he replies, voice deep and strangely calm.

She doesn’t answer.

The man standing in front of her now, keeping his back turned like he is refusing to look at her is someone other than the man she spent her heat with.

He forced her into this situation, and she was not left much of a choice when it came to spending her heat with him, even if he took care of her and it felt like they actually connected for some parts, he’s in charge of this situation. And he knows that. He knows he has the upper hand.

She still feels a pull towards him, a connection, it’s easier to ignore it now that she’s no longer in heat. But she knows it will grow stronger and be harder to ignore during her next heat. And she has no idea how she will feel if she puts some distance between them.

She doesn’t know what she wants to do. She just needs time, and space, to think.


	6. Chapter 6

It’s only been a few days, not nearly enough time to get her head straight, when she feels him, closer than he has been since their last interaction in his kitchen.

She has never heard of Alphas being arrested for claiming an Omega without the Omega consenting to it, so she has spent time looking into it.

There have been a few cases, classified under sexual assault, but they never went to trial due to the lacking evidence. Without any witnesses it was word against word.

If she decides to press charges it will be the same, her word against his.

Ben is a lawyer with great resources, both in terms of money and connections.

She has a feeling it wouldn’t work out well in her favor, no matter how she tries to play out the different scenarios in her head, it always ends the same way. And no matter what she decides to do and how he reacts to that, she will still be bound to him. Nothing can change that.

After doing research and playing out all the hypothetical scenarios she can think of in her head, she feels like it’s futile, a strong sense of unease rising in her. She hates to admit it, but she is scared. Scared of what comes next.

She has worked so hard for the life she has now, and she was content and happy with how far she has come, until he in just a matter of seconds changed everything.

She hates him for that. She hates him for having the power to change her life so easily, for putting her in this situation. She doesn’t know what to do, if her reaction to his action will make it worse or better.

Not knowing if she’s ready to face him she still turns, finding him standing a few feet behind her where she is leaning against her car. She arrived just minutes ago to relive Poe for the night.

“Officer,” his deep voice sounds as their eyes meet.

She really wishes he didn’t call her that. Before she would have been pissed off if he called her anything other than that, now she does however hate it. It’s like he’s pretending like nothing has happened between them, like they don’t know each other as intimately as they do now.

“Ben,” her voice just a whisper as she takes in his features.

She feels him in a way she never imagined possible. It’s like her body is instinctively drawn to him. Like she needs him to feel complete. Even with the pull she feels, the ache to be close to him, she doesn’t move.

Her pulse spike as he opens his mouth, but whatever he is about to say is interrupted by footsteps coming towards them. Rey snaps out of it, looking away from Ben as Poe approaches them.

It’s gone. The moment they were suspended in is broken, and without a word Ben turns on his heel walking away from them towards the beginning of the small path going down from the main house towards the cottage.

Poe gives Rey a quizzical look, “what was that?”

“Nothing,” Rey shrugs, eyes avoiding him. She’s suddenly self-conscious.

There are signs that something has changed, and they are pretty hard to miss. Like her scent. It’s not just her anymore, it has a distinct presence of Ben in it too. She can also sense an almost bitterness in it, from being claimed and not mated, just barely there hiding under the layers of her essence.

Poe is Beta, and not so attuned to scents as Alpha and Omegas. But he is a cop. If she acts different than she normally does or strange in any way, he’ll pick up on it. 

“Did he tell you?” Poe enquires.

Rey scratches her head, “tell me what?” suddenly very conscious of her body language.

Poe snorts, “apparently golden boy has a date tonight,” a brief chuckle escapes him, “must be nice to be above the law, still allowed to do as he wants even when he’s under house arrest.”

There is a hint of bitterness in his tone.

Poe grew up in town, and they’re around the same age, Ben and Poe. So it wasn’t so strange, Poe’s obvious animosity towards Ben. The whole town was practically built on contributions from the Organa-Solo’s. They were royalty around here.

Ben being allowed so lenient terms during his house arrest because of who he is, no matter all the contributions his family has made to the community, was bound to upset some people.

Poe pats her back, “lucky you.”

“What?” Rey’s voice comes out a bit more high-pitched than intended. He couldn’t mean..

Poe chuckles, “you get to supervise the date.”

***

Going on a date is the last thing Ben wants to do. But his mother was insistent. According to her Ben apparently needs to date, she wants him to find an appropriate woman to settle down with.

Senator Organa had, as Ben thought she would, used her powers of persuasion.

Phasma obviously said yes to this just because she knew it would frustrate Ben, she probably got a real kick out of thinking about how annoyed Ben would be when he had to go on a date because his mother said so.

Chewie had of course also gone along with it, Leia was the wife of one of his friends and they knew each other well, so he probably didn’t see the harm in letting Ben out for one night. The fact that he had gone along with this also told Ben that Rey hadn’t said anything. If Chewie knew what Ben had done, he would not let him go on a date, he would have Ben’s head instead.

During her heat Rey probably wasn’t coherent enough to really comprehend what the implications of what Ben had done was. But now, after she had some time to think and process the situation, it surprised Ben that Rey hadn’t said anything. He fully expected her to.

And he expected Chewie to band together the rest of the Chandrila Police department, and arrest him, and not in a gentle manner.

The arrest would of course not stand. His parents would be outraged at what Ben had done, but no matter their moral objections to it, they would still make sure that the arrest was removed from his record and didn’t make it to any of the news outlets. And they wouldn’t be the only one, he was far too valuable to Captain Phasma for her to let an arrest by a small-town Police department hinder the case she was working on, no matter what Ben’s offence was.

Ben has no interest in his date. There was nothing wrong with her, Bazine is a pretty girl, and intelligent, but she wasn’t for him.

The only reason he reluctantly agreed to this was because his mother wouldn’t have left him alone until he agreed to take her out to dinner. The last thing he needs is more of his mother’s attention on him.

The Netal’s were family friends, and it was common in his parents’ circle of friends to set their children up with each other. Even if it was normal, didn’t mean it wasn’t awkward. They were both very aware of why they were on a date and knew that their parents will want a full report of it. So it wasn’t really a date, it was more like a job interview.

He keeps it to normal pleasantries and small talk, just being polite enough so he knows he will get a good performance review that will undoubtedly make it back to his mother. He doesn’t take it any further than that, he has no interest in Bazine, so being polite enough so she’ll feel like it was a good date, but not being interested in going on a second is what he is aiming for.

While he is entertaining his date, he also keeps stealing glances over at Rey. She is situated a few tables behind them in the restaurant.

She is ignoring him. She has since she gave him a brief look before they drove in separate cars from the estate.

He should have told her. If they hadn’t been interrupted by Dameron he would have. He should have tried to explain, and not just about the date.

Going on a date with another woman, just days after he spent Rey’s heat with her, just days after he claimed her, was bound to get some sort of reaction. But she doesn’t react. She doesn’t even look his way.

***

Ben was a handsome man, he was rich, well-connected and from a distinguished family, and he could be quite charming when he wanted to be. She couldn’t imagine him having trouble in his dating life, even with him currently being under house arrest, that much was obvious as she watches him wine and dine his date for the evening at the fanciest restaurant in town.

And his current date wasn’t the only one, many women would probably line up if given the chance to be with him.

It was not like he needed to claim Rey against her will. So why did he do this to her?

Claiming her doesn’t make any sense. And in the end, all her conflicting emotions, all the unanswered questions and indecisiveness regarding what to do boils down to one feeling, anger.

She doesn’t care that he’s on a date, that’s not part of why she is angry. She’s angry because he could so easily do something that has such a large impact on her life, and nothing changes in his. He can just go on living his life, and act like nothing is different.

She just wishes he could feel what she was feeling, even if it was just a small fraction of it. He’s not being held accountable; he probably never has.

And she knows it’s also her doing for not holding him accountable. But what can she really do, she’s got nothing and he’s got everything. He could crush her if she tries to go against him.

She can’t stay there. She can’t be in the same room as him any longer. She hates him. She wishes he could feel what she is feeling, the hurt, betrayal and insecurities. The harsh boiling anger is just looming under the surface. 

It’s just too much, and it makes her stand from her seat, quickly exiting the restaurant. She’s supposed to be watching him, it’s her job, but right now she doesn’t really care. She can’t stand to look at him, or even be in the same room as him. And it doesn’t matter if she keeps an eye on him or not, he can tamper with his ankle bracelet and go anywhere he wants anyway.

She feels him before she sees him. She’s hunched down beside the dumpster in the alley next to the restaurant, leaning her back against the wall, hidden from view. He couldn’t just let her go, he couldn’t just leave her alone. Of course not. He had to follow her. Just the few minutes she got alone actually calmed her down a bit, and he just had to come and ruin it.

His large figure is in front of her, casting a shadow down at where she is sitting, “Rey,” he says, his deep voice calm.

Her head snaps up, eyes meeting him, staring daggers at him, “leave me alone,” she hisses.

“You shouldn’t stay here,” he continues, “let me take you home.”

“Go back to your date,” she replies, coldly.

She would much rather sit there next to the trash. It actually feels strangely familiar and calming. When she was a teenager she used to scavenge for food, and if she was lucky, she found clothes or other valuables. Her foster father wasn’t the caring or paternal type, he used the little the government gave him to take care of her on himself. So Rey as a means to survive used to rummage through dumpsters like the one she is sitting next to now on a regular basis. It wasn’t a fond memory, so it does surprise her at how calming it really is sitting there next to the trash.

She actually told him that she grew up in foster care, she opened up to him, she didn’t take it as far as to tell her about her experiences, about going hungry, having to look for food in the trash. If she had he probably wouldn’t have treated her any differently. In a way it was fitting that she was sitting there next to the trash now, with him looking down on her, he has treated her like trash.

“She left,” he says, extending his hand to her, to help her up, “you can’t stay here.”

She shakes her head, ignoring the hand he has reached out to her, “you can’t tell me what to do,” she replies.

He takes a deep breath, sighing, “Actually,” he’s leaning down, grabbing her, making her stand up, “I can.”

“Fucking asshole,” she spits, pushing his hands away from her.

He just stares back at her, her insult not having any visible effect on him, “it’s not safe for you to be alone in an alley late at night,” he finally says after staring at her for a few moments.

“I can take care of myself” she scoffs, “and you have no right to tell me what to do,” she regards him, eyes narrowing.

He’s moving closer, forcing her back into the wall behind her, his hands find her waist holding her in place, “it was only meant as friendly advice, so to speak,” his eyes boring into her “you and I both know that I can command you,” he pauses, grip on her waist getting tighter, “don’t make me do that.”

All the feelings that had up until now been hiding just under the surface comes roaring to the top like a tidal wave. She doesn’t think, she just acts. Her hand makes contact with his cheek, a sharp slapping sound filling the space around them.

Rey has never been a violent person. Never before in her life has she resorted to something like this. She hits him, her hands striking at every part of him in reach. Her mind is blank, all she feels is the impact she makes on his body.

For a few minutes he’s completely still, he just stands there as she hits him.

After a particularly hard blow down his cheek and then another directly to his mouth, making him lean his head to the side to spit, small specks of blood hitting the ground, he puts an end to it, grabbing her wrists and pinning her to the wall. He’s growling, dark eyes staring her down.

“You’re a monster,” she screams at him, trying to fight the hold he has on her.

“Yes,” he grits his teeth, nostrils flaring “yes, I am.”


	7. Chapter 7

Chewie knew. The moment she came into his office he knew that something wasn’t right. And it only took him a minute to figure out what it was, his nostrils flaring as he took in her scent, a low growl rumbling in his chest as Rey starts to talk.

The person in the alley last night wasn’t her. She had never in her life acted like that before. No matter how hopeless the situations she had been in had felt, she had never sunk so low as to turn to violence. He did deserve it, there was no doubt in her mind about that. But still, by acting out like that she was stooping to a level she never thought she would, no matter how hopeless the situation might feel to her. She should have told someone; she should have gone to Chewie sooner. She shouldn’t have let it go so far.

She barely slept last night; she feels dizzy. It’s like it is all happening so fast, like she has no control. And really, she has no control of the situation. She stays there, in Chewie’s office, after he leaves. She can hear him barking a command after he shuts the door, and then the station is quiet. Only the sound of her beating heart, pumping blood fast trough her veins.

Chewie knew the Organa-Solo family well. From what Rey had heard he and Han were close friends. But even if they were, Chewie had principles and a good sense of morality. Arresting Ben Solo after he learned what Ben had done was the right thing to do, and Chewie did just that. Pushing Ben into his office, his hands cuffed behind his back.

***

Ben looked rough. His face drawn and his knuckles raw. It wasn’t Rey’s attack on him that had made him like that. He did have a scratch from her down his cheek but other than that her assault hadn’t left any marks. It’s what happened afterwards that had made the greatest impact on his physical appearance.

He was angry, rage boiling inside him, when he left her in the alley.

The treat of commanding her, he didn’t follow through on. He knew, like she also commented, that she could take care of herself. She was a cop, and she carried a gun that she probably knew how to use if put in a position where it was necessary. And an alley beside the nicest restaurant in Chandrila was hardly a place where she was in any real danger from anything.

He just felt this need, this urge, that he had trouble stopping himself from acting on.

All the way home he fought himself, and it wasn’t until he stepped inside the cottage that he let his pent-up frustration loose. Nothing was safe from him, everything in reach he let his anger out on. He punched holes in the walls and threw every object in sight to the floor, he had even torn up the cushions on the sofa. The carnage left in his wake made it look like a tornado had gone through the small house.

It was a rough night, and then to be dragged off to the local police station by a very angry looking Chewie accompanied by Lando and Dameron, who looked equally as angry, wasn’t a good continuation of things.

She told them. That much was obvious. She’s not even looking his way now, demonstratively remaining in her seat, with her back turned to him as Chewie pushes him into his office.

Chewie is staring at him; eyes narrow in an angry scowl.

Ben scoffs, “I’m exercising my right to remain silent,” he says when it’s obvious that Chewie is not going to say something first.

Chewie responds with a low growl, looking like he wants to murder Ben, but he thinks better of it, probably remembering that he is a cop and an upstanding member of the community. “Do you want to call your lawyer?” he asks.

“No,” Ben shakes his head, “I don’t need a lawyer,” he pauses, “call Captain Phasma at the Coruscant Police.”

Chewie scoffs, practically rolling his eyes, but he still picks up his phone and leaves the room to call Phasma, leaving Ben alone with Rey.

“This is not going to go the way you think it is,” he says.

She turns, her eyes bloodshot, features drawn. She looks like she hasn’t slept much either.

“Is this where you tell me that you have so much money and know many powerful people,“ she snivels, looking like she is on the verge of crying, “and that I don’t stand a chance if I go against you?”

“No,” he shakes his head, “but Phasma is not going to let Chewie arrest me.”

She scoffs, “Of course,” she pauses, “what you did wasn’t right, and now you just get to walk away because you know the Captain of the Coruscant Police department.”

“Rey,” he sighs.

“No,” she snarls, “you don’t get to say my name,” she’s standing up, hands balled into fists at her sides, “you don’t get to walk away, when I can’t,” her chest is heaving, “I feel you, every waking moment I feel you. You are a part of me now, your scent embedded in mine,” tears are running down her cheeks, “I can’t escape you.”

***

He has no conscience. He’s an entitled prick. And she already knew that. She just thought that he might show some redeeming qualities after he was arrested, that he might show some remorse for what he had done. She didn’t have high hopes, she just hoped that he was at least able to recognize that what he did to her wasn’t right, an apology was probably too much to hope for.

What she said in anger and frustration, screaming at him last night, she now knew was really true. She said it in the heat of the moment. Just aiming to find something to hurt him with like he had hurt her, knowing that her words and attack on him wasn’t even close to what he had done to her.

Of course, his relation to Captain Phasma was going to get him out of this. Rey can’t do anything other than watch as Phasma arrives, saying that she needs a word with Ben in private.

“He’s going to pay for this, we won’t let him get away with it,” Poe says, looking Rey in the eye, giving her a determined look.

Chewie sighs, “unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.”

“What?” Poe exclaims.

“Whatever his crimes he is protected by both the Coruscant Police and the DA,” Chewie says with a sigh, “he must have something important that they want. When I called the DA after I talked to Phasma they practically stonewalled me, while they insisted that charges couldn’t be brought against him.”

“So he’s just going to walk?” Poe practically shouts, “he’s an entitled Alpha dick who claimed an Omega against her will, and he’s just going to walk?”

Rey understands Poe’s frustration, she feels it too, but it doesn’t make it better when he’s talking about her like she isn’t there.

“A claiming bite isn’t against the law,” Chewie responds, “Ben is a lawyer so he knows that, and he also knows that without witnesses he can say that it was consensual in the moment, and that she changed her mind later. It ends with Rey’s word against his,” Chewie’s hand finds Rey’s, “I believe you,” he gives her a small smile, “I’m sorry there isn’t much more I can do.”

***

Phasma is just staring at him. After a few minutes, and Ben not saying anything, Phasma decides to break the silence, “I honestly don’t care about what happened between you and Officer Niima,” she pauses, “but when I see an opportunity for it to work in the favor of our case, I plan on taking advantage of it to the fullest extent.”

Ben back at her confusedly, “what do you mean?”

“Not that your intel hasn’t been good,” she pauses, “I’ve still been wanting to get an officer undercover for years. Officer Niima is a trained officer, and she now have a connection to you which provides a good cover, she’s perfect for the job.”

Ben’s eyes narrow at her, “she can’t be involved.”

“She reeks of you, so in a way she’s already...,” Phasma starts.

Ben cuts her off with a growl, “I won’t allow it.”

“Yes, it’s a risk,” Phasma says, ignoring Ben’s growl and angry stare at her, “but she is well trained and has good instincts from what I can tell from her performance reviews.”

“You don’t know him like I do,” Ben says under his breath, shaking his head at her.

Phasma sighs, eyes fixed at him, “she’s a good cop that can handle herself well.”

Ben just sighs in response. If Phasma has made up her mind it was going to happen whether he liked it or not.


	8. Chapter 8

“You’re going to have to show a bit more enthusiasm,” Phasma says.

Rey can’t help that her jaw clenches and her eyes narrow.

Apparently, her acting skills aren’t the best. And no matter how hard she tries she can’t bring herself to even be able to pretend.

But she has to. Or she doesn’t really have to, Phasma did give her a choice. It wasn’t like Rey had agreed to this at gunpoint. Working with Captain Phasma in an undercover operation was a good opportunity. It was something she had hoped she would get to do, and it would advance her career. It’s just the fact that she has to work with Ben that makes it hard for her to sell the role Phasma wants her to play convincingly.

Ben Solo, heir to the Organa-Solo dynasty and big hotshot lawyer, apparently knew some people connected to a criminal organization that the Coruscant Police and District Attorney was eager to investigate and hopefully put behind bars.

His house arrest for insider trading was a lie. Ben was never under investigation for insider trading, his house arrest was just a cover to get Ben out of the city while they regrouped after the Coruscant Police had conducted an unsuccessful sting operation. If he just left the city by his own volition that would apparently look suspicious.

Phasma didn’t go into too many details, but Ben had apparently made a very good deal with the District Attorney that protected him from prosecution for any involvement with illegal activities the organization was involved in, in return for him giving the police information.

Even with Ben’s help, all the police’s efforts had been to no avail, and Phasma had tried for years to get an officer undercover without success. And now she hoped that Rey, with her unwilling connection to Ben, would be the perfect officer to go undercover.

Or that’s at least what Rey gathered from the little Phasma told her. Phasma also said that Ben should brief Rey more on the details.

As Rey went over her cover story with Phasma, trying to remember it all and sell her cover convincingly, Ben had been watching, not appearing to be very interested.

When Rey agreed to go undercover and learned of Phasma’s plan for Rey’s cover story, Rey knew it wasn’t going to be easy. She had to play the part of Ben’s girlfriend, and newly claimed Omega, which was what made the whole thing so hard for Rey. Their idea of the type of girl her cover is, is so far from Rey’s personality. And pretending to be Ben’s girlfriend, when she could barely stand to be in the same room as him, had to be the hardest part.

She has to make people believe that she is Rey Johnson, a twenty-five-year old former cocktail waitress, that met Ben several times when he visited the club she was working at. And that they entered into a relationship. And after dating for a little while Rey quit her job, moved in with Ben, and he claimed her as his. She has to pretend that she is in a loving and happy relationship with her Alpha.

It was the farthest from the truth they could really get.

There was nothing happy and loving about their relationship.

After Chewie arrested Ben, later having to let him go, Ben had barely spoken to her even after Rey agreed to go undercover and had to play the part of his girlfriend.

The only things he had really said was a few comments as they rehearsed Rey’s cover story, like commenting that the way she dressed had to be done something about. Rey soon learned that being Ben’s girlfriend apparently meant wearing expensive clothes and make-up and showing off her body more than she was really comfortable with. And shoes with high heels. Rey had never understood how anyone could walk around on high heels all day. It was like a torture device for her feet. 

Rey’s conclusion after getting the unwanted upgrade of her wardrobe, and from a few other pointers he came with, mumbling under his breath, was that Ben usually dated airheaded bimbos. She never understood why he claimed her, and it was becoming even more unclear to her now. She was so far from what he was telling her that she needed to pretend to be, she was obviously nothing like his usual type of girl.

***

Every day. Every fucking day he has to participate in preparing Rey. Phasma insisted, and of course Rey had agreed to it. So now Ben was back at his apartment and to his life, but with Rey there too.

It’s the last thing Ben wants to do. So he involves himself very little in the preparations. It’s Phasma running the show, and he’s got no say in it as of now, so he’ll just have to go along with it.

Rey is living with him, since she is playing the part of his girlfriend. Sleeping in the guestroom of course. But they are sharing the space of his apartment, she’s in his kitchen and living room all the time. Every time he’s there she’s there too. 

Thankfully he is back to his normal routine, he’s going to work every day, something that gives him some space away.

They don’t speak. Even if she’s there all the time, they avoid looking at each other, and they barley say a word to each other.

It hasn’t been that long, only a week, but Ben can’t wait for it to be over.

Phasma is right, Rey’s enthusiasm is a bit off. She’s able to go over the basic details of her cover story acting in a convincing manner, but as soon as they get to the part about their relationship and she has to talk about him her expression changes. Talking about the man she is supposed to be in love with brings a hard expression to her face, and she basically grits the words out.

“This is not going to work,” he says.

It’s probably the tenth time Phasma has asked Rey to tell her about Rey’s relationship with Ben, and Rey looks like she is getting her teeth pulled out as she has to recite the fake story of how they met and how much she loves him.

“What do you mean by that?” Rey snaps.

Ben scoffs. He can’t even say a single thing in her presence without her looking like she wants to murder him. “I think you know what I mean.”

He understands that she hates him, that’s not so strange, and she has every right to. But if she isn’t able to bottle up those feelings and pretend, she’s going to get herself killed, and probably him too.

Phasma sighs, “He’s right,” she says directed at Rey, “there is no back-up, once you’re in the only thing keeping you safe is your cover story, so you have to convince them. If you don’t you are both in danger.”

Ben hopes Phasma calls the whole thing off. He never agreed to this to begin with and seeing how hard it is for Rey to even pretend to like him, he knows that it will never end well. But Phasma doesn’t seem like she’s going to do that, she tries to coach Rey through it a few more times, giving her some pointers and then she leaves them for the night.

“We should probably rehearse,” he says as he moves into the kitchen, with Rey following him. It’s been a long day at work, made even longer by having to participate in Phasma’s preparation of Rey, he’s not really in the mood to cook or do anything really.

“Yeah,” she agrees, probably the first time in while she has responded to him without venom lacing her tone, “but first you can start with you telling me the details.”

“Details?” Ben questions.

“Phasma said that you would give me the background story.”

Ben’s eyebrows raise, he is a bit surprised that Phasma left it up to him to brief Rey. Phasma did know enough to give Rey a quite comprehensive background, but she also probably knew that Ben was holding back on a few things, not being completely honest with the police. Having him tell Rey was probably Phasma’s way of trying to catch him off guard making him screw up and tell Rey something he didn’t want the police to know.

He sighs, torn between dismissing her and giving her the story he told the police. He has to give her something. If he refuses her disdain for him will probably grow, if that was even possible. So if they are really doing this, she can’t go in unable to contain her hate for him, that will ensure that they fail and end up in a shallow grave.

“A few years back I represented a guy that was charged with murder, and I got him off. I knew he was guilty and that he was involved with other criminals,” he pauses, looking down at his feet.

She scoffs, “how noble of you.”

His head snap up, eyes meeting hers, “everyone has the right to a defense. He never told me he was guilty, I just gathered that he was by the evidence, and it’s not my place to act as a judge.”

She huffs, narrowing her eyes at him, “how does you representing a man guilty of murder lead to you informing on a criminal organization to the police?”

He sighs. Now came the part where the truth had some modifications, “the man was part of a vast criminal network, apparently I did such a good job in defending him that it caught their attention,” he lets his hand comb through his hair, sighing, “long story short, I ended up representing them in legal matters, and I did some favors for them, which I shouldn’t have done, and when I realized that I was getting in to deep I contacted the DA.”

“And now you’re helping the police bring them down,” she states.

He nods as he gauges her expression. She seems to accept his story, not questioning it, which is good. He won’t be able to keep her from the parts of the truth he’s been keeping to himself for long, she will figure it out eventually once she goes with him undercover.

She already hates him; it shouldn’t really matter if she despises him more. He just can’t bring himself to tell the truth, not now, and probably not ever.

“You can hate me as much as you want in private. But if you’re not able to contain those emotions and pretend like you’re my girlfriend, you’ll get us both killed,” he says.

“I know,” she nods. And for the first time since they spent her heat together, she smiles at him.

Her smile takes him by surprise, he never imagined Rey smiling at him ever again.

And it’s not the only thing that surprises him. She’s moving closer to him, her fingers splayed over his abdomen, looking up at him through her lashes.

“How was your day, baby?” she purrs.

Ben isn’t able to contain a chuckle, “baby?” he questions, eyebrows raised.

She bites down on her lip, looking like she is contemplating. “Honey?” she responds, arching her brow, as her fingers trails over his stomach to his sides.

He snorts, smirking at her. She’s actually better at pretending than he expected. “Alpha,” he says firmly. He knows she is going to hate calling him that, but he won’t be called by any pet names or other terms of endearment. 

“How was your day, Alpha?” she says, actually able to contain most of her obvious disdain, it just briefly paints her features.

“It was good,” he says, “how about yours, sweetheart?”

She sighs, grip on his sides tightening, “oh, it’s was ok,” her eyelashes flutter as she looks up at him, “it’s so much better now that my big strong Alpha is here.”

The fact that she is able to say it without the sarcasm being too heavy actually impresses him, maybe she will pull this off. He still rolls his eyes, shaking his head a bit, at her.

She leans back, crossing her arms over her chest, “how was that?”

He licks his lips, “that was better,” he moves towards her, hands reaching for her hips, stopping midair as her knee makes contact with his groin before he has any time to block her, “don’t touch me,” she seethes as he groans in pain.


	9. Chapter 9

Instead of Phasma having Rey try to recite a story and try to convey feelings for him convincingly while doing it, Rey is now trying to fully immerse herself in her character. Phasma is probably delighted at Rey’s efforts, instead of dropping by every day she leaves Rey to rehearse and really get into character.

For a few hours every day, from when he came home from work to they went to bed, Rey played the part of his girlfriend, delivering the performance with more finesse each passing day.

Ben enjoyed coming home to a homecooked meal. He enjoyed the conversations. He enjoyed her flirtatious efforts, when she’s saying things in a seductive manner while her soft hands touched his arms or chest.

She has also taken to really teasing him. She’s making him want to touch her, he has to fight himself not to, he won’t make that mistake again.

But as soon as the day was nearing its end, when it came close to going to bed, in separate bedrooms, he was reminded that it was all an act. For a few hours he let himself forget that.

The woman she was pretending to be wasn’t her. It was far from who she really is. Even if he enjoyed the few hours she was pretending, he couldn’t get himself to really like it.

His insistence on certain character traits his fake girlfriend should have had really been in an effort to avoid this. In the moment he thought that if the character Rey was portraying was far from who she really was he wouldn’t enjoy it so much. But he couldn’t help but enjoy the few hours they spent together every day, when her hatred of him wasn’t so obvious.

Their new routine consisted of Rey greeting him at the door when he came home from work, so after she has done that for a couple of days, and she doesn’t do it today, he knows that something has changed.

And it had. Rey was sitting at the dining room table with several folders and documents scattered on the table in front of her. Upon further inspection he realizes that they are police files. Phasma must have given them to her. Probably to give Rey more background.

“The First Order,” Rey suddenly says, making Ben’s heart start to race.

He wasn’t prepared for this.

“From what I can tell, the police have very little information,” she continues, “the leader is apparently some shadowy figure they call the Supreme leader,” she looks up at him, “do you know who he is?”

Ben nods. He can’t lie, there is really no point to that.

“Then there is The General, apparently he oversees the daily operations of the organization,” she looks up at Ben again, like she wants him to confirm that he knows him too, and Ben nods.

“And then there is this guy,” her finger point to the folder in front of her, “the others don’t have real names, only a title that reflects their rank,” she pauses, “Kylo Ren, that’s a name right?”

Ben just nods. It is a name. A name he is too familiar with. His heart is racing, his breath becoming irregular as he watches her study the file.

“They learned of him only a few months ago. They think he’s close with the Supreme leader but isn’t so involved in the daily operations.”

She looks up at Ben again, “Phasma wants to go after the people at the top in order to dismantle the organization. But they have very little information on them,” she gesticulates to the files, “she wants me to try to figure out the leaders’ true identities and confirm the organizational structure.”

Of course, Phasma wants that. It was one of the things Ben has been holding back on. He had been reluctant to confirm names or give physical descriptions. And Phasma knew he was holding back information. She probably thought he was like the rest of the sources she had worked over the years, scared. Giving up the leaders of the organization is a sure way to put a massive target on your back if they found out.

Ben had been careful, and he had an immunity agreement. He wasn’t scared of retaliation. He should have come clean months ago. But something always stopped him from doing that. He talked himself out of it every time, using some irrelevant excuse for himself. But what really stopped him was his pride.

As he’s watching Rey go over the files, he knows she’s ready. She has been for days. Ben have been stalling, allowing the charade to go on for longer than really necessary.

His selfishness made him do that. He knows that the moment they proceed things will change, and the moment her task is completed she will be out of his life.

“I thought you didn’t like to degrade yourself by going to places like this.”

It was supposed to be a soft start. He has taken Rey to a bar he knows a lot of criminal elements frequent. It’s a hole in the wall place. Only those knowing what type of place it is knows how to find it. He was hoping that just a few low-level guys would be there, that they would not run into any trouble and that the night would be uneventful, like a way to slowly dip their toes in.

She was getting good at acting. She managed to play her role quite well. But it was still a risk, especially if they encountered guys higher up in the system. They were notoriously suspicious. If she said one wrong thing, or reacted in the wrong way, they were screwed.

It was just typical that the first person they run into after getting their drinks and sitting down at a table is Hux.

The nasty pasty rat.

“I’ve been away for a while, so I thought I’d see how things are going,” Ben responds as he stands up, taking Hux’s hand in greeting.

“And you’ve brought your Omega,” Hux says, extending his hand to Rey, “we weren’t properly introduced the last time,” Rey takes his hand, “Rey Johnson,” she says. Hux lifts her hand to his lips, placing a kiss to it, “lovely to meet you, Rey. I’m Armitage Hux.”

Ben has to fight to hold back a growl. She is washing that hand immediately. He might even do it for her, just to ensure that every trace of Hux is gone from her skin.

“It’s good that you’re here,” Hux says as he takes a seat at the table, “we have business to discuss.”

Hux points over to the corner, at three young women sitting at a table, “while we discuss business, you can hang out with my girls,” he says directed at Rey.

Ben is not sure what is worse, Rey staying to listen to whatever Hux has to say, or her spending time with those girls. He still gives her a nod, as if to allow her to go over to them.

He knows what those girls are. He knows what Hux does with them. Everyone in the organization does. It’s no secret that Hux likes to take pretty young Omegas, not always willingly at first, and keep them for himself.

They’re usually teenage runaways or girls looking to party in all the wrong places, girls that no one will miss. He’s a fucking predator. 

And now Rey is there with them, she’s talking to them, having drinks with them. It’s all he can focus on. Whatever Hux is saying is just static. He doesn’t care what the creep has to say. It’s normally just crap, nothing Ben gives a shit about.

***

They’re both quiet. None of them saying a word the entire way back to Ben’s apartment.

Rey doesn’t know what to say. Where to even begin. She has so many questions. But she’s having trouble formulating them in a proper manner since she mostly feels sick after the things she just learned.

When they get back to the apartment Ben walks into the kitchen, getting some water. She follows him, still staying in silence, until Ben finally breaks it, “did you talk to the girls?” he asks. For some reason he’s looking nervous. His eyes hesitantly meeting hers.

Rey huffs. She did. Before she would have been shocked. Now after what she was going through with Ben, what he had done to her, a part of her wasn’t surprised.

They were all claimed by the red-haired man, Hux. He had created his own little harem of Omegas. All at his disposal whenever he wanted them.

That was bad enough. What was worse was that they seemed completely fine. They seemed like they were enjoying themselves. Like they didn’t find what he had done to them disgusting. Or that was at least the impression she got at first.

It was probably the impression they had to give, she soon realized.

She felt sick to her stomach listening to the girls talk, watching them drink copious amounts and dancing around like they didn’t have a care in the world. After a little while she had to excuse herself to go to the bathroom.

Safely secured in a stall, hunched over the toilet in case she actually threw up, she felt tears in her eyes. What kind of a person does that? Claims them, several of them, and parades them around like that. It’s sick.

Then she heard it. It was just a hushed whisper coming from the stall next to hers, at first, she couldn’t catch what they were saying.

“You need to get away from him,” the voice said, barely audible. It’s soft, feminine. And there is no doubt in her mind that it’s one of the Omegas she just met that followed her into the bathroom. 

“it’s only going to get worse,” the voice continued, “you need to get away while you still can.”

Rey felt a tightening in her chest. It probably took a lot for this girl to warn Rey. If her Alpha found out she would probably be in trouble, but she still risked it, following Rey into the bathroom to urge her to get away.

Rey didn’t need the warning. She could walk away anytime she wanted. She was there by choice, to do a job. It was supposed to be the other way around, Rey was the one that should be urging these girls to get as far away from this as they could.

But before she could say anything, she heard the door of the stall next to her open, and the occupant leave the restroom.

She looks at Ben, “one of them tried to warn me, she followed me into the bathroom and told me to get away from you.”

Ben’s eyes widen a bit, raising his eyebrows in surprise, “I thought he had successfully brainwashed them.”

Rey shakes her head. Still having trouble wrapping her head around everything. “What is he doing with them?” she asks, “is the First Order a human trafficking operation?”

“No,” Ben rushes to say, his eyes wide, “they deal in a variety of different things, but not human trafficking.”

“What is he doing with the girls then?” she asks.

Ben sighs, “he’s a creep,” he looks down at his hands, “it’s a part of his thing. He likes to provide girls to the parties, and Snoke allows him to do it since the guys like having something to play with.”

Rey is going to be sick.

“He takes girls he likes or he thinks the other guys will like, keeps them locked up only allowing them outside to attend parties or when he shares them with his friends,” Ben continues, “he usually takes a better liking to some of them, and then he waits for their heats and he claims them. The ones he has claimed he usually allows a longer leash, sometimes bringing them with him outside, like tonight.”

He had three girls with him tonight, Rey shudders at the thought that there are more of them, all taken and kept to serve some sick men’s twisted desires. The thought of what those girls are living through, what they probably have to do to survive, makes her run for the sink, reaching it just in time as her dinner makes its way back up.

She feels Ben behind her, a hand hesitantly at her lower back, then stroking over her back in a soothing motion, “I couldn’t let him do that to you,” he murmurs.


	10. Chapter 10

“What do you mean?” she asks.

He should tell her what he meant. He should tell her the truth. That he knew that she wasn’t going to leave that filthy biker bar without being attached to an Alpha the moment he saw her there, after he knew Hux saw her too. She was alone, in a place she shouldn’t have been. He could see it in Hux’s eyes, smell it on him, what he wanted to do with her.

Claiming her was the only viable option for her, as far as he could see in the moment. It was better that it was him, than Hux taking her.

It’s better that she hates him. It’s better that she doesn’t know.

Starting to tell her the truth about that will only lead to more questions, it will only lead to him having to tell more truths, and he’s not ready for that.

Maybe he should have told her from the start, tried to explain the morning in the kitchen after her heat was over. He just couldn’t.

He thought he could do it a few days later when it wasn’t so fresh, the time he approached her in the driveway, when they were interrupted by Dameron. Even if they were interrupted, he could have found a way to tell her, but turned out he couldn’t then either.

It was just easier that she was angry with him, that she hated him. Hate was something he could deal with, and anger was a familiar feeling for him.

Even if he told her why earlier, she still might have hated him, and she still might continue to hate him now.

She doesn’t like that he touches her, he could get another kick to the balls for this, but he can’t stop himself. His arms wrap around her, his head buried in her neck, drinking in her scent.

Surprisingly she allows him to hold her.

He barely knew her at the time. They had just had a few exchanges. But he had actually enjoyed those exchanges for the most part, she wasn’t easy, she pushed back, but she also talked to him, she was curious.

And she intrigued him. Maybe if things had gone differently, he would have got to know her better, maybe he would have gotten over his own stupid way of acting and be able to explore something with her. Or maybe he’d just remember her as the Omega cop he met when he stayed with his parents, the girl that didn’t always take his crap without question.

But things weren’t different. He had changed her.

After he claimed her, he could tell that she was in shock, she was probably scared and unsure of her future, and then finally came the anger.

Anger was a feeling he understood. When she was angry, she was easier to understand, he could predict her actions, even if she had taken him by surprise a few times. Now he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if she’s still angry, she probably is.

“What you did is not so different from what he does,” she suddenly says, “It’s the same for me as it is for those girls,” she moves away from him, putting distance between them, “A claiming bite is for life. I’m really as trapped as those girls are.”

He can’t look at her, so he walks away. It’s not just her, what she is saying, it’s everything. It’s erupting inside him. He needs an outlet.

It’s a fucking mess. He has made so many choices that has led him here, so many bad choices. Going to the police, trying to make it right, was the first step in the right direction. But he couldn’t even get that right, he couldn’t be completely truthful, and he had dragged Rey into something she shouldn’t be a part of, changing her life in the process. He deserves her hate.

Walking away from her, hiding in his bathroom, isn’t the right thing to do. They should talk. He should let her voice her thoughts without shutting her down by walking away. He is just so angry. It’s rising in him, raw violent anger, erupting in the form of his hand making contact with the bathroom mirror. He can’t even stand to look at himself.

He expected that to be it. For the night to end with him walking away from her, and hiding away, letting his anger and hate overcome him, he expected that the bathroom mirror wasn’t the only object he would take his frustration out on. But Rey had other plans. It was like she wasn’t going to let him walk away this time.

She’s there, in his bathroom, walking up behind him, Ben just looks at her through the cracked mirror. Whatever she does now he will go along with. When he feels her hands at his arms, pulling them behind his back, then something cold and hard at his wrists, his eyebrows raise in surprise at her. She’s handcuffing him. Not at all what he expected her to do.

“You know,” she says, looking at him through he cracked mirror, “that’s seven years of bad luck.”

“So you’re arresting me?” he questions.

“No,” she takes him by the arm, ushering him into the living room, making him sit down in a chair at the dining room table.

“If you’re not arresting me, what’s with the handscuffs?” he asks. She’s somewhere behind him, he can hear her moving around, something being poured into a glass.

She doesn’t answer, not until she’s back into view, a glass of wine in her hand, sitting on top of the dining room table in front of him.

“We are going to talk,” she says, her expression hard, eyebrow raised at him, “and you’re in the habit of walking away or refusing to be truthful with me,” she takes a sip of her wine, a small smile at her lips, “so the handcuffs are merely to ensure that you don’t.”

He scoffs, “I can still walk away,” he responds. She hasn’t cuffed him to something, so he’s free to get up any time he wants.

“Yeah,” she smirks, “but then you’ll have to figure out how to get out of the cuffs yourself, that’s going to take you some time and probably get very uncomfortable,” she pauses, regarding him, “I’ll take them off when we are done talking.”

He shakes his head at her but doesn’t say anything. If this is how she wants to play it he’ll go along with it, for now.

“What did you mean?” she asks.

He had to give her this. She was determined to get him to tell her the truth. So he had to give her that on the parts he could.

He looks away from her, down at his knees, “he would have taken you, the night you showed up at the biker bar. I know him, and I saw his intentions when he saw you,” he mumbles, “if you weren’t claimed by me, he wouldn’t have let you get away.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before you did it?”

“There wasn’t enough time to explain, it all happened so fast, and you probably wouldn’t have listened to me,” he sighs.

She scoffs, “Ok,” she pauses, taking a few deep breaths, “but you could have told me after, in the car, during my heat, even after my heat was over, you’ve had plenty of opportunities to tell me.”

“That wouldn’t have changed anything,” he mumbles.

“You don’t know that,” she exclaims, voice going up a few octaves, “the fact is that you thought that you knew best, and you still think that you know how I will react, so you choose to keep things from me, things that involves me, things that you should be honest with me about.”

“You want honesty?” he looks up at her, “he would have taken you, forced you to be with him, made you into some shell of yourself, never allowing you freedom again,” his eyes move over her face, finally meeting her eyes, “I didn’t need to ask you to know that that is something you don’t want,” he pauses, taking a deep breath, “yes, I did take away your choice, but I will never treat you like that. You’re free to do whatever you want, you can walk away anytime, and I’ll provide for you, whatever you need.”

“Provide for me?” she questions, eyes narrowing, brows turning into a scowl.

“Yes, anything,” he replies, “whatever you want it’s yours.”

She scoffs, shaking her head at him, “like in money?”

He nods, “yes,” he pauses, “or anything else you need, just name it, and we’ll see if it can be done.”

She scoffs again, “you’re a real dick sometimes.”

He can’t really understand why she’s calling him a dick now. He knows he can be a bit of an ass sometimes. But offering to provide for her shouldn’t be counted as one of those times. It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing he could do.

“Money, or whatever else you can buy me is not going to make this right,” she says.

He stands up abruptly, towering over her, “don’t you think I know that,” he growls, anger rising in him. Of course, he knows that whatever he can offer her is not going to change anything, it’s just the only thing he can do to hopefully make her life a bit easier.

“Sit down,” she grits, her hands at his biceps pushing him back down into the chair, her foot at his chest pushing him back once he’s seated again.

“Did you ever think to ask me what I want?” she says, the heel of her stiletto pushing hard into his chest. He hisses at the sensation, regretting the choice of footwear he suggested she wear.

When he doesn’t respond, she shakes her head at him, while pushing her heel further into his chest, she was going to leave a mark.

“No, of course you didn’t,” she hisses, “you were to busy acting like a dick, treating me just as you say he would have.”

“I haven’t done that,” he objects.

“You haven’t?” she chuckles darkly, “then what’s with the snarky comments about how I should act and what I should wear,” she gesticulates to her dress, “in order to play the role of your girlfriend I apparently have to be like some airheaded bimbo, because that’s what you want me to be.”

He looks away from her again, biting his lip.

The woman she was pretending to be wasn’t her. It was far from who she really is. His insistence on certain character traits his fake girlfriend should have was in an effort to get the character Rey was portraying to be as far from who she really is.

Not because he wanted her to be like that, but because he didn’t want Rey to be herself when she was pretending. If she was too close to herself, he would have liked it too much.

She’s too close. To close to him physically, and she’s getting too close to him emotionally.

He should lie. He should tell her that he does want her to dress up like that, and act like some Omega that can’t think for herself. But he just can’t.

“I don’t want you to be like that,” he mumbles, his head hanging, “I thought that if you had to act as someone far from who you really are, it would be easier to pretend like I don’t feel the way I feel about you,” he takes a deep shaky breath, “I thought it would be easier to watch you walk away after the job is done.”

Her hand is at his chin, moving his head to look at her, “pretend like you don’t feel the way you feel about me?” she questions.

“I –,” he tries to look away from her again, but she won’t let him, the grip on his chin hard, keeping his head in place. To get out of it, he pushes the chair back and stands up quickly.

“Ben,” she says, as he moves to walk away, “how do you feel about me?”

“Fuck,” he curses, sighing as he hesitantly meets her eyes, “I didn’t think I would,” he starts, “I didn’t in the beginning, it just happened...” He can’t even bring himself to say it. He was right, it was easier when she hated him. It was easier to act like an ass, to keep her hating him.

He doesn’t have to spell it out for her. He can tell by the way she looks at him now, her eyes wide, looking back at him with a sort of perplexion, that she knows what he means.

He is struggling against the cuffs, “take them off,” he growls. He’s done. Telling the truth about this made him vulnerable. Allowing someone in, when he had closed himself off for so many years, made him weak. He feels weak now, and more vulnerable than he has in years.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration struck, so I just had to pound out another chapter. Now I’m gonna need a long cold shower.
> 
> Please enjoy, and stay safe!

She’s moving close to him again, only this time her hand is grabbing the front of his shirt, pulling him towards her. He hesitates, but allows her to pull him closer, his legs slotted between hers, he is bending down, hiding his face in her neck as her hands move up to his shoulders, one further up to tangle in his hair.

“When did it happen?” she asks.

He sighs into her neck, still keeping his head buried there, “I don’t know,” he answers truthfully, “I guess I found you interesting before, the few times we talked, and after I claimed you it just developed.”

She’s pulling his head back, to look at him, “but you went out of your way to act like an ass.”

He meets her eyes hesitantly, “yes.”

Her brows furrow, “why did you do that if you started to develop feelings for me?”

He sighs, “It was easier if you hated me, so I guess I tried to ignore it, tried to pretend like I didn’t feel something..” he stops himself. He can’t do it.

The mask, the persona, he put on. He knew he could be intimidating. He knew he could be a dick. It was just easier for him. Ever since he was a young boy, so full of hormones, so full of anger, they treated him like he was going to lash out any second. Like he was going to become this horrible monster, ruled by the worst character traits of his designation.

It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy, he was treated like it was unavoidable what he would become, and unbeknownst to them, he had turned into everything they feared.

Acting like he had towards Rey was just how it had to be. Even if she could find it in herself to forgive him for what he had done to her, he had done so many other things, so many horrible things. If she knew about that, there is no way she would even be able to look at him. Fueling her justified hate of him was also his way of ensuring that she never got too close to him, that she would never learn of those things. Phasma’s unwelcomed interference had most likely ensured that Rey would learn of those things eventually, learn of how deep he really was in the First Order, how much of a monster he truly was.

She huffs, rolling her eyes at him, “you’re still so sure that you have it all figured out,” she pauses, shaking her head, “maybe things would have been different if you had been honest with me from the start. Maybe things can be different, but you don’t know that since you don’t even try.”

He scoffs, fighting against his restraints, “take them off,” he says again.

She snorts, a small laugh escaping her, “so you can run away from me again?”

“I’m not messing around, Rey,” he growls, “take them off, now.”

“We’re not done,” Rey responds firmly, “can you for once try to not act like an ass?”

Ben growls, feeling the cuffs dig into his skin as he tries to fight them, he knows it’s futile, but he still tries, “I’m not acting like an ass,” he snarls, “I told you the truth about why I claimed you, and more than that too, what more do you want from me?”

“You’re still trying to run away,” she responds accusatory, eyes narrowing at him.

He’s breathing heavy from the strain of his futile attempts to get out of the cuffs, he moves so he’s in her face, growling at her, “take them off,” he says through gritted teeth.

Her hands move, but to his surprise she is not moving to release him from the cuffs, her hands are at the sides of his face, pulling him closer so his face is just inches away from hers.

“Why should I believe that you have feelings for me?” she says, voice just a whisper, as their eyes meet.

He takes a deep breath, tries to ignore her close proximity, “I would never have told you if you didn’t push,” he pauses, tries to pull away but she keeps him in place, “I know there is probably nothing I can say to convince you that what I’ve told you is the truth.”

Her hands let go of his face, moving down to his belt, unfastening the buckle.

Of all the things he thought would happen, Rey ridding him of his clothes was the least expected.

He had of course thought about being with her again. About seeing her through her heats.

He would have seen her through her heats if she wanted that, not that he thought she would ever want that, that she would ever ask. But he would have done it if she asked. It would of course on his part be a bit selfish too, to have her like that again. He would enjoy it, just a few days with her with her hatred of him not so strong since she needed him. It would of course go back to normal again after. She would hate him for it, for having to turn to him, not having much other choice. And he would have been fine with that, he could live with her hate, if he just got to have her for a brief period of time, once in a while. When he had thought about it, he knew he did want more than that too. But he had decided that he wasn’t going to do anything change her perception of him so that maybe she would want more with him.

He was never going to tell her, but now that he had he knew his explanation was shit. He claimed her and decided how their relationship was going to be without talking to her about it. He knew that telling her why he claimed her, and confessing his feelings, just barely, he couldn’t even do that right, wasn’t going to justify what he had done. A claiming bite was for life, she was bound to him whether she liked it or not. No other Alpha would want her, some Betas might be able to look past it, but her options are limited, while he on the other hand is still free to be with whomever he wants. Nothing he says will change that or justify his actions.

Now he didn’t know. He didn’t know if she still hated him, she probably did, even if she wasn’t acting like it right now. She might be able to understand why he did it, but he didn’t expect forgiveness, she had every right to hate him. And his feelings, the ones he had trouble expressing properly in words, they didn’t change anything.

She’s pulling down his boxer-briefs, freeing his cock. He didn’t expect that to ever happen, for her to want to touch him again, for her to be so confident and assertive as she is when she pushes him back into the chair then pulling her dress up and her panties down her legs. He forgets about the cuffs digging into his wrists, now uncomfortably digging into his lower back too, as she takes his cock angling the tip between her slick folds, slowly letting him sink into her tight warm cunt.

He didn’t even know when he got hard, and he didn’t know when she got so wet. But he doesn’t care when it happened, not when he’s inside her again, and it’s just as heavenly as it was the last time he was inside her.

It feels so good as she starts to move, grinding on him. She instigated this, why she did he doesn’t understand, but he’s not going to question it.

Her hand is grabbing the hair at the back of his head, pulling his head back roughly, making him groan at the sensation, while she slowly moves on his length. It slow, so excruciatingly slow, like the sweetest kind of torture.

“Why do you like me?” she asks, voice breathless as her cunt squeezes his cock.

“I like your cunt,” he says while smirking. He really can’t help himself.

She tightens her grip on his hair, stopping her movements. “Don’t be an ass,” she hisses.

Fuck, she was really trying to torture him. He can’t do anything but sit there, taking what she dishes out.

“If you can’t even tell me what it is you like about me, why should I believe you?” She starts moving again, in the same slow pace, her cunt squeezes him so good, but it’s not enough. He needs more, and she knows it, he can tell by the way she looks at him, an almost smug smile at her lips while she looks at him struggling.

“Your scent,” he starts, “from the first time we met you smelled good to me,” his breath hitches, she’s moving her face to his neck, her sweet lips kissing the sensitive skin under his ear, “I like the way you are,” he continues, “you’re not like other Omegas I’ve been with,” surprisingly she emits a low growl when he mentions being with other Omegas, “you challenge me, question things, you’re curious. You are not always easy to read. You can be very frustrating,” he chuckles, a bit forced due to the pressure on his cock and her kisses to his neck, “But it’s intriguing, it makes me want to learn more about you, get to know you better.” She’s moving with more purpose now, squeezing him harder, “you’re so beautiful,” he says, a frustrated cry leaving him the moment after he said it since her movements stop.

She’s looking at him, eyes wide and mouth open.

“You are,” he says, giving her a sheepish, lopsided smile. He hates laying himself bare like this, admitting what he likes about her, but he has come this far. He feels exposed, in a way he has never felt before. He bites down on his lip, “take the cuffs off, Rey,” he tries again, more desperate this time, “please let me touch you.”

He whines, actually whines, when she moves off him. It’s embarrassing how desperate she has made him. She can’t leave him like this, that is really beyond cruel at this point, his cock is so painfully hard, but maybe being left like this is just what he deserves. Maybe it was her plan all along, get him so worked up that he was on the verge of tears, then leave him with his hands still cuffed together so he can’t do anything about it. When he thought about it, it was a really good way for her to get back at him, make him suffer. It couldn’t compare to what he had done to her, but it was really the best way she could get something resembling revenge if that was her goal.

Thankfully, it was not. She’s behind him, finally releasing him from the handcuffs, allowing him free use of his hands again, and he takes full advantage of that the moment he is free. She squeals as he grabs her, pushing her back down on the dining room table, he rids her of her dress by tearing it off her, making the fabric rip in the process, he needs her naked under him as quickly as possible.

All he wants to do is thrust into her, fuck her into the hard surface of the table, but he thinks better of it when he sees her glistening cunt, so fucking wet for him.

She has been teasing him, riding him in such a slow pace, giving him just enough to keep him on the edge, but not enough to push him over it. Fucking her fast and hard will give him what he needs right now, but it will be so much better after he has made her feel as desperate as he is first. He is going to eat her out, make her squirm, beg him for release. Only when she’s sopping wet, crying for it, he is going to fill her up with his cock.

She shrieks in surprise when his tongue makes contact with her clit, she obviously didn’t expect him to do that, her hands are in his hair pulling at it again, if she keeps that up he is going to end up with bald spots.

He moves his head up again, tutting disapprovingly at her while he grabs her arms, pinning them on either side of her body, “it’s my turn,” he says, a mischievous smile on his lips before he dips his head down between her legs again.

She’s tastes so sweet, it’s like her scent, only in a much more concentrated form. He’s getting dizzy with it as he licks into her. He lets his tongue swirl around her clit, making her arch her back and moan loudly. They’re making a mess, his spit and her juices, his face is wet, probably full of it, it’s dripping down on the table. He likes that, he likes being messy, being so wrapped up in pleasure that he doesn’t care about anything else.

“Ben,” she whines, her body slightly trembling. She’s so close, probably very sensitive too, since she is trying to, halfheartedly, fight his hold on her. He’s not going to let her come this way, he is going to drive her crazy, like she made him. He is going to lick her cunt until she begs him for release.

“Please,” she cries, the desperation evident in her voice.

He moves up from between her legs to look at her, she is a vision, truly. Her face flushed, tearstained, her eyes hooded, but wild, her sweet lips wet and bitten. Her entire body is flushed, glistening with sweat, her chest is heaving.

“What is it, sweetheart?” he says, trying to play it nonchalantly, like the mere sight of her isn’t enough to make him come on the spot.

“Make me come,” the blush on her face intensifying, “please,” she adds, looking him straight in the eye.

His chest is rising and falling with the deep breaths he takes, trying to keep his composure, realizing that he can’t. He can’t deny her, he can’t deny himself, any longer. His large hands grabbing her hips, pulling her towards him, his cock between her folds, finally sinking into her in one harsh thrust, making them both moan loudly.

His thrusts into her are erratic, he’s driving into her chasing that euphoric feeling he craves so deeply. He’s gonna knot her, he feels it, there is no way he can stop. “Rey,” he chokes out, his hands on her, pulling her body closer to his, “can I –,” he should ask first, or at least give her some kind of warning, it’s probably not the same as when she’s in heat, taking a knot, when she’s not in heat. 

“Yes, yes,” she cries. He didn’t even manage to finish asking, but she already knows, she can probably feel it expanding, feel how close he is.

He groans feeling the tingling sensation at the base of his cock expand. She moans, convulsing around him, squeezing down on his cock, her entire body trembling, as she reaches her peak, and with one final thrust he follows, spilling into her.


	12. Chapter 12

She let him hold her. Let him take her to bed, the only thing they did was sleep, but she did let him hold her. It was a major change from just a few hours earlier, where there was no doubt that he would have gotten a knee to the groin or a slap to the face if he even tried to get too close to her.

When he wakes, she is gone. The space next to him still with the lingering warmth, the scent, of her.

She’s different, when he finds her in the kitchen. She looks pensive, her forehead wrinkled in a frown. She acknowledges his presence, but just barely.

It had to be regret.

She initiated it, and it surprised him, but there was no way he would have stopped her, and he’s not going to apologize for it. There is a lot of things he should apologize for but having sex with her last night is not one of them. If she’s regretting it now, there is really nothing he can do about it.

Maybe she just needs time to think, a lot happened last night, so maybe she just needs time to think it over, figure out how she feels about it. It was impulsive, they probably should have waited until she was sure it was something she really wanted.

He wants to touch her again, kiss her, before he leaves for work. But he is not going to push it, not when she looks so lost in her own thoughts.

He clears his throat, “I’ll see you tonight,” he says, finally catching her attention, her eyes darting to meet his.

She nods, frowning deeper as she bites down on her lip. She looks like she wants to say something.

“Rey,” he sighs. If she’s not going to say something, maybe he should. He was finally able to open up to her a bit, but he’s not good with expressing feelings or talking about things like this.

“I -,” she starts, looking away from him, “have a good day,” she says as she meets his gaze again.

***

Ben Solo was a man with many faces, he came in many disguises.

The man she first met, the cocky full of himself Alpha, that as an introduction acted rude, and actually offended her.

The man in the woods, the misogynistic asshole, who pinned her to a tree still with his rude and vulgar attitude towards her, laced with a bit of anger.

Then there was the man that she ran into while he was drinking straight from a bottle of wine in the garden. The man that made her question if her initial perception of him was correct. Made her think that maybe she was a bit quick to judge after their first interactions.

Then the angry, and rude, man was back at the failed dinner party his mother invited them to. But she noticed something different about him that night, underneath all the layers of his scent, through the bitter hint of anger, there was sadness, hiding in his potent scent.

Those were the sides of him she knew until the night he claimed her.

Then she got the man that tended to her needs, took care of her, until he suddenly switched when her heat was over. The man from their first encounters was back, only worse.

And he had been like that since that, the full of himself cocky Alpha, with his attitude and snide comments.

And suddenly, he changed again. He confessed feelings for her. Feelings that he had given no indication of having before, but only after she practically had to force it out of him.

Did she trust him? No, of course not. She couldn’t trust him.

He had done nothing to give her any hint of the feelings he suddenly confessed to having. If he really had feelings for her, he was a master at lying to others, and probably to himself.

He could maybe have deeper feelings; she was not going to write it off completely. But she wasn’t going to trust that he truly did either.

He had lust for her, he wanted her sexually, after last night she didn’t doubt that. If it ran deeper than lust, she wasn’t so sure.

And maybe his confession was just out of guilt. He saw how she reacted to the realization of what those girls had to go through, her realization that she wasn’t so different from them. She was trapped, just like those girls. Maybe realizing that suddenly made him develop a conscience, realize that she didn’t have any prospects in the relationship department other than him, and that made him confess to feelings he didn’t really have.

What bothers her about that line of thought is that he seemed truthful, the way he looked at her, the way he was obviously fighting something inside him to be able to detail the depth of his feelings and what he likes about her.

But Ben Solo is a man of many faces. The most prominent one, the one she had seen most of so far, was the cocky full of himself Alpha.

She can’t really believe him when that’s what he usually portrays.

“Normally I just check in once in a while, they’ll get suspicious if I suddenly take a greater interest,” Ben explains.

Rey had asked him when they would try approaching the First Order again.

She sighs, leaning back in the sofa next to him, “so we just continue playing house?”.

“Is that so bad?” he swallows, looking at her hesitantly.

They haven’t talked about what happened, neither of them approaching the subject. They should talk about it, but it has been easier, more comfortable, not to. Now they are approaching the subject. ‘Playing house’ as she called it, was basically what they had done for the last few days. They ate breakfast together, and when Ben came home from work, they had dinner together, then they usually watched something on TV, sitting closer than they used to, but not too close. And then at the end of the night they went to bed, still in separate bedrooms. So maybe it wasn’t exactly like playing house, but for them it was the closest they had gotten to something resembling it.

She meets his gaze, hesitation painting her features as well, “It’s just that I’m here to do a job and hanging around your apartment all day isn’t it.”

“Hux mentioned a party next Saturday,” Ben scoffs, suddenly sounding a bit annoyed, “you’ll probably get some good intel you can give to Phasma then. Hopefully you won’t have to ‘play house’ with me for much longer.”

“Ben,” her hand finds his, interlacing their fingers, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what did you mean?” he questions, moving closer to her.

“What I meant..” she’s suddenly feeling a bit nervous. They had been avoiding the subject, ignoring what happened between them. She sighs, “We can’t continue to pretend,” she has to address it, “we had sex, and you told me you have feelings for me,” she sighs,” but I can’t trust you.”

“I meant every word I said,” he responds.

She gives him a hard stare, “we shouldn’t have slept together,” she says firmly.

“So you regret it?” he questions, arching a brow at her.

She knew she instigated the physical part. And in the moment, it felt good to be with him. She knows it was stupid and probably not one of her finest moment. Even if it felt right in the moment, it was like she had given away some of the power she had slowly started to build. She felt like she had finally been able to put him in his place, showed him that she wasn’t just some weak Omega that he could push around, then after everything they had been through, she had just spread her legs and let him have his way with her. It felt like she had given in too easy.

When she doesn’t respond he scoffs, “I don’t know what you want, so you have to tell me.”

“I don’t know what I want,” she finally admits.

There is nothing he can say to convince her that what he’s told her is the truth.

She’s needs to stop overthinking. If Ben truly have feelings for her, if he’s actually being honest with her, he will show it. He will stop acting like a total jerk towards her. And if he changes his behavior, if he really shows her that what he said is true, then she might start believing him. Maybe that will make it easier for her to know what she wants.

“Well,” he stands up, “when you figure out what you want, let me know,” he starts to walk away.

Why did he have to be so difficult? He’s acting like he’s offended that she doesn’t know what she wants.

“I just need you to show me that I can trust you and that what you told me is true,” she stands up too. She is not going to let him walk away. He needs to understand that it’s not easy for her. Sleeping with him was one thing, but actually trusting him, and knowing what she wants is another.

He turns to look at her, “and how do you propose I do that?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs, “just don’t walk away from me when we’re having a conversation.”

He hesitates, then he sighs too, “fine.”

“Maybe we can just do something together away from all distractions, so we get to know each other better,” she suggests.

He opens his mouth to respond, a smile tugging at his lips, but before he can verbalize a response the doorbell ring. Instead of responding to her suggestion he sighs before he goes to answer the door.


	13. Chapter 13

The interruption, the doorbell ringing, was unexpected. In the time she had stayed with Ben no one other than Phasma had been there, but they always knew in advance when she was coming. What was even more unexpected was that it was Ben’s father at the door.

It was awkward to say the least. Han seemed uncomfortable, and like he had never been inside Ben’s apartment before. Ben’s face took on a stony expression, arms crossed across his chest, regarding his father with narrow eyes as Han took in his surroundings.

And Rey just generally felt awkward about the whole situation.

Ben doesn’t look happy about his father being there, his feelings about it being made very clear when his eyes practically shoots daggers at Han when Han starts talking.

Ben apparently left without saying goodbye to his parents, and Rey knew from what Chewie had told her that the cottage Ben was staying at was in quite a state when they arrested him, so Ben didn’t leave on the best of terms. Leia has apparently been trying to call Ben, without Ben answering, and that is what brought Han there. That’s what he says, but Rey can tell that it’s not the only reason. Han keeps looking her way, brief hesitant looks, as he talks to his son.

Rey’s guess is that Chewie must have told them. Exactly what Chewie has said to Ben’s parents she doesn’t know, but he must have said something.

Ben leaving like he did hadn’t gone over well with his parents, that much is clear, and Han is insistent on Ben coming back to have dinner with them, probably to smooth things over.

Ben is reluctant, but eventually agrees. And that is how Rey finds herself at dinner at the Organa-Solo estate the next night.

She didn’t have to go with Ben, but Han asked, and it would have made it even more awkward if she turned down the offer.

It’s also an excuse to go back to Chandrila to see her friends. Rey didn’t exactly say goodbye in a proper manner either. She just left town without talking through her decision to work with the Coruscant police with her friends or co-workers, other than Chewie.

It’s still not entirely clear to Rey what Ben’s parents know. They are civil, and friendly, to both her and Ben during dinner. Ben has barely spoken since he agreed to visit his parents, and Rey agreed to go with him. He seems tense, mostly just observing his parents, responding if asked a direct questions, but not elaborating much in his answers. 

Rey on the other hand talks, a lot. Both Leia and Han, as they had insisted she called them, asked her questions, and took an interest in her answers. In the end it felt like Rey did all the talking, when asked she told them about her job as a police officer, and how she always felt like that was what she wanted to do, and about her dreams and aspirations. When dinner is nearing its end Rey can’t help but have a beaming smile, no one has ever taken an interest in her like this before, it’s what she always imagined having parents would be like. Someone who cared, someone that took an interest in her life and ambitions. Even if he hadn’t said much, Ben also had a small smile on his lips as he looks at her, something that changes in a manner of seconds as Leia asks Rey to join her for a walk around the garden.

“It’s dark out,” Ben huffs.

Leia waves his comment away with a hand motion, “I need some air, and Rey is accompanying me.”

It’s nice that Leia wants to get to know Rey better, that she wants to spend time with her. When Rey suggested spending time with Ben, so they get to know each other, this wasn’t what she had in mind. But getting to know Ben’s parents is part of getting to know Ben better. Even if Ben is a bit closed off, not engaging much, Rey feels like this is a step in the right direction, like he’s opening up more by letting Rey interact with his parents.

How truly wrong Rey is about the whole night becomes very clear the moment they step out on the patio, and Leia turns to look at her.

“Ben is an accomplished man, from a prominent family. He has many options when choosing a partner, many women would love to become his wife,” Leia’s eyes bore into Rey’s, “so I’m having a bit of trouble understanding why he chose you.” It’s direct, the pleasant atmosphere between them during dinner gone in a manner of seconds.

“Wife?” Rey snorts. What kind of relationship does Leia think they have? Chewie must not have told them everything.

“As I understand, a bite like my son has given you is a clear indication of a long-term relationship,” she pauses, “and many would consider it more permanent than marriage.”

She was right about that. It was more permanent than marriage.

Rey looks at Leia confused; she can’t really understand where she is going with this.

“My son may have some traits and certain proclivities due to his designation, but he knows what is expected of him and he knows what this family stands for,” Leia gives her a smile, that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, “My husband and I have been spearheading policy change, we have worked so hard to get to a place where we almost have equality for all designations. So for Ben to choose to mate before he is married, and choose to do so with a woman that won’t be able to support herself if she is to match his lifestyle, is troublesome, and we have great reservations regarding it.”

Everything Leia Organa had worked for Rey agreed with. Rey even idolized the woman for doing so when it was a cause that didn’t directly affect her. Now as Leia is looking at her the way she does, speaking these words to her, Rey feels sick, and like one of her idols is being knocked off the pedestal Rey has put her on. 

“But rather than delve on how we ended up in this situation. I think the best solution for all parties is that Ben is free to choose a woman more appropriate,” Leia continues, “you will of course be well compensated for your cooperation.” 

They had been putting on a show, a charade, during dinner. Leia’s words hurt, but the fact that they had been pretending to want to get to know her during dinner hurt more.

“We are not mates,” Rey manages to say despite the lump in her throat, she can feel tears starting to form in her eyes, she has to fight to keep them back, “he claimed me without asking me if I wanted it first.”

“That may be,” Leia responds, “I am aware of his shortcomings, brought on by his designation, but that doesn’t mean that I am going to stand by and just watch as he tarnishes our family name,” she pauses, cocking her head slightly to the side, “You’re a smart girl so I’m sure you can understand.”

***

He was going to kill his mother. Of all the things he despised his parents for, this was just the final straw.

He knew the invitation came with strings attached to it. He knew they weren’t happy with what he had done, and the manner he left. But that they would take it out on Rey is really what did it.

Inviting Rey was on the surface a nice thing to do, but Ben knew his parents better than that, they didn’t do things just because is was nice or kind, or the right thing to do. They always had an agenda, especially his mother, and his father just went along with it usually, the fucking coward. But Ben didn’t think that their agenda was to make Rey as upset as she was. He expected them to take it out on him, he was the one that had put him and Rey in the situation they were in, and he was sure that Chewie had told his parents that. That his mother wanted some alone time with Rey troubled him, he knew how she could be, he just hoped that she wouldn’t be like that towards Rey. But his mother had been like that, he could tell the moment they came back after their walk. Rey looks different, her eyes red around the edges, her expression confused and hurt, and by her scent he can tell that she’s distressed.

And his mother just continues on playing hostess, while they have drinks in the living room, like nothing has happened. And Ben is sure something has happened judging by the change he sees in Rey and his prior experience with his mother. 

He leans into Rey’s ear, “It’s not because of you, it’s me,” he whispers. He is not going to cause a scene by confronting his mother, not when he doesn’t know exactly what she has done.

Rey just shakes her head, her lips forms a thin line and she looks down at her lap.

He is not going to make Rey sit there, force her to continue to pretend like everything is fine. It takes years of practice to be able to do that, and by the looks of Rey she is not even close to manage it.

“I think we’ll retire for the evening,” Ben says as he stands up abruptly, dragging up Rey with him.

“What did she do?” he asks the moment the door to the bedroom in the main house that was provided to Rey and him closes behind them.

“It’s nothing,” Rey responds, avoiding looking at him.

“It’s not nothing,” he reaches out for her, pulling her closer, “I know how she can be.”

She’s leaning her forehead into his chest, “it’s nothing,” she mumbles.

Ben knew its wasn’t nothing. He knew his mother had said something that upset Rey. But instead of pushing her he starts talking.

“They could never accept what I am,” he starts, “they didn’t want to acknowledge it, so they sent me away,” he strokes over her back, “they have this idea of what I should be and I never met their expectations.”

Publicly his mother was a champion for equal designation rights. But when he, her own flesh and blood, presented she took it particularly hard. They sent him away and had distanced him from them since that. Not that it was much of a difference from before he presented, they hadn’t been home much or spent much time with him before he presented either. Only after he presented it was different, they sent him away to boarding school and it seemed like they deliberately distanced him from them. He was only brought into the spotlight at moments opportune for them and in front of the selected people in their circle. None of them ever brought it up, it was like they had an unspoken agreement to never talk about it. At first, he didn’t understand, in many ways he still didn’t understand. However, he soon realized that their actions were a clear indication that they didn’t want anything to do with him.

He was a liability. The Alpha son, with obvious issues with how to deal with his designation. He was so young. He didn’t know how to handle the changes, both physical and emotional. He developed a temper, the unresolved tension crawling under his skin made him lash out. And instead of helping him, like they had done for so many other with their initiatives, they sent him away.

He dealt with it better now, but he still had those moments from time to time, the crawling under his skin, the anger rising to the surface.

He knew that to them his recent actions, claiming Rey, something he was sure that Chewie had told them he had done, was just another confirmation to them that he was all the things they feared he would be. But instead of speaking to him about it, his mother had taken it out on Rey. She had said something, since Rey was so visibly shaken, he was sure of it.

“It’s not you, you’ve done nothing wrong, it’s me,” he continues, “just tell me what she did.”

“She -, “Rey starts, her voice a whisper, “she doesn’t think I’m good enough, and she offered me money to go away so you could be with someone more appropriate.”

It’s not a surprise to him, it sounds exactly like something his mother would do. “you are better than me, it’s me who’s not good enough for you,” he says. It’s true. He has constantly treated Rey in a manner he shouldn’t, he has put her in this situation, she is better than him, so much better.

She moves her head back, her narrow eyes meeting his, “don’t you think I know that?” she questions, “you’ve been a jerk to me, you’ve treated me like shit,” she pauses, shaking her head at him, “you should be grateful that I’m even speaking to you now, and that I even entertain the idea that we could work through this, and that is only because I’m too fucking trusting, because I believe in second chances. But then to be told that no matter what you did, you are still better than me because of who you are, to be offered compensations to go away so you can find a more appropriate and suitable woman, that hurts, especially when it’s coming from someone who has worked for equal designations rights and that I’ve looked up to because of that,” the palm of her hand hits his chest, “I don’t care who you are, what you have done isn’t right.”

***

It wasn’t Ben who had hurt her this time, it was his mother with what she was saying, but it was just as if it was a continuation of what Ben had done to her. She couldn’t blame Ben for what his mother said, but in the moment she did.

After she went to bed, Ben going into the bathroom to take a shower, probably an excuse to get away from her accusing looks and words, she realized that. It wasn’t Ben that had said those things to her. Ben had for the whole evening seemed uncomfortable, like she didn’t want Rey to interact with his parents, and now she understood why.

When Ben joins her in bed, laying with his back turned to her, she moves closer, her hands stroking over his back before she embraces him. It’s barely there, just a whisper coming from him, “I’m sorry,” he says before he turns his body on the bed to face her. His arms encapsulate her, pulling her into him, and his lips finds her’s.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI  
> Minor Character death ahead, not very graphic.

“She must have misunderstood...” Leia says only to be interrupted by Ben, “You knew exactly what you were doing. Don’t try to pretend like it just happened accidentally.”

“Benjamin,” Leia sighs.

“Mother,” Ben responds, sounding exasperated.

“She seems like a sweet girl, very down-to-earth,“ her tone sounds almost bitter, only Leia Organa could make sweet and down-to-earth sound like insults, “but she is not for you.”

“Who I’m with is none of your business,” Ben responds, raising his voice.

“But she’s not really with you though, is she?” Leia sneers, “Chewie told us everything. And we both know that if what you did to that girl comes out, it reflects very badly on you, and on the family. So it is better for everyone if you cut all ties to her, and we will ensure that she is well compensated for her silence.”

“I’m not going to let you bully her into anything,” Ben snaps back.

Leia scoffs, “I’m sure she can figure out on her own that it’s in everyone’s best interest.”

Rey never thought Leia Organa would be like this. But Leia’s words last night confirm that Leia Organa isn’t the woman Rey thought she was.

It also makes her see Ben in a different light. The revelation that Ben’s parents aren’t good people, that they have probably treated him in the manner Leia treated Rey last night. Not being honest, putting on a charade, and acting like she is something that needs to be managed.

Ben told her that they sent him away, that they didn’t accept him and that he never met their expectations.

She knows she has been making excuses for his behavior. Tried to believe the things he has told her. That Ben hasn’t grown up with loving parents is probably just another excuse. But it does make her feel like they actually have some things in common. Their lives have been very different, they are very different people. But not having parents and having parents that doesn’t show true love and acceptance of their child, are similar. In a way they were both abandoned at a young age.

Rey didn’t mean to eavesdrop. It just happened.

When she woke up Ben wasn’t there. It was almost lunchtime, so he obviously let her sleep in. She needed that. She feels well rested, and her head clearer than it had been for a while. She appreciates Ben speaking with his mother, but it’s not necessary. Rey can fight her own battles. She doesn’t need him to do it for her.

Rey isn’t going to stop it though; she’s not going to interrupt their conversation. She’s not going to insert herself in the middle of what is obviously not just about her. She was just the catalyst of the conversation they were having now. And she was sure that if it hadn’t been her, they had plenty of other things to disagree about and argue over.

The only reason they had stayed the night was because Rey had made plans with Finn and Rose the day after, and Ben had insisted that if they were to pretend to be a couple, not staying at his parent’s place when they were in town would look suspicious. She agreed but regretted that decision now.

She was meeting Finn and Rose at Maz’s later tonight, after they got off work. Originally Rey thought that she would spend the day with the Organa-Solo’s before she met up with Finn and Rose, now Rey can’t stand the thought of spending another minute there.

***

She left.

He went downstairs to get something to eat and then use his mother’s study to get some work done. He did of course run into her, his mother, and had to endure the inevitable interaction that followed. When he went back to the room Rey was gone.

Her things were still there but she was nowhere to be found.

He can’t really blame her.

Leia Organa had that effect on people when she showed her true colors, making them want to get away as fast as they can. He had done the same. For years he kept his interactions with his parents limited, he avoided them as best as he could. But they had this extraordinary way of pulling him back in.

He wasn’t going to let Rey get tangled up in it. He wasn’t going to subject her to his mother ever again.

After Rey is done seeing her friends, he’ll pick her up and they’ll go back to Coruscant, hopefully leaving what happened here behind them.

He still had to work on gaining Rey’s trust, of earning her affection. It wasn’t going to be easy, especially if he confessed all of his sins to her. He knew he had to, it had become clear to him that if he really wanted her to trust him, he had to be completely honest with her. He couldn’t be selective with the truths he told her like he had been. She would probably not trust him right away, she would probably hate him even more, but being honest with her and showing her that he’s not that person, at least not anymore, is the only way they can move forward.

***

What happened last night, what she’s going through with Ben, are like distant memories. It’s almost like it hadn’t happened.

Spending time with Finn and Rose had that effect on her. She was just a girl in a bar, having drinks with her best friends. They were talking and laughing. It was like she didn’t have a care in the world. It’s fun. It’s easy. It was like before, before Rey’s life got complicated.

She knows Finn and Rose will be there for her no matter what. She knows she can tell them anything. She doesn’t want to though, at least not right now.

She doesn’t want the night to be about that. She should tell them. They’re her best friends and she haven’t told them anything about what happened, about Ben.

The usual chatter filling Maz’s bar has died down around them. Rey looks around her, finding the source of the patrons’ sudden silence.

Ben. He was there, walking towards the bar.

His parents were like royalty around here, and he was the prodigal son that had returned, and suddenly decided to get a drink at Maz’s.

Rey did of course know why he was there. It was because of her. She left without a word earlier in the day, and he knew she was meeting her friends at Maz’s.

He doesn’t look at her, he makes no attempt to interrupt her time with her friends, he just takes a seat at the bar a few feet away from them and orders a drink.

It’s a small town. And the people living there liked to gossip, something that wasn’t so strange since interesting things rarely happened. Ben Solo’s return was surely something interesting. He was the son of the most powerful and prominent people in town. He had rarely been there over the years, so rarely that newcomers in town, like Rey, didn’t know who he was at first.

By the hushed whispers, and the looks Ben are getting, Rey is sure that the people that didn’t know who Ben was now knows.

It’s a free country. Ben has every right to go to a bar and have a drink. Rey just wished that he hadn’t come there. His presence changes things. She looks at Finn and Rose, they’re looking between her and Ben. The obviously know something. Poe must have told them. Finn and Rose knows Poe, and given Poe’s obvious frustration and anger with Ben, Rey was sure that he had told some version of what happened to Rey’s friends. She knows that on Poe’s part it was probably not meant as cruel, or like some sort of gossip. Rey’s friends should know what was going on with her. Poe probably just told them since he was worried about Rey. Rey wished he hadn’t, but she can understand why he did.

She’s not sure if she’s ready to tell them everything, she doesn’t want their evening to be about that. But Ben’s presence has made it about that, what was a fun night has now turned into something more complicated.

“What are you doing here?” she asks. Like always, she can’t avoid it. She can’t avoid him. He’s like a big elephant in the room. It took her a few minutes to gather herself before she walked up to him.

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he starts. Rey rolls her eyes at him. What did he really think was going to happen? That him being there wasn’t going to change the atmosphere? “I have to go back to the city,” he continues, “I can pick you up tomorrow or send a car later tonight.”

Rey’s brows furrow, “why?”

As far as she knew Ben didn’t have any other plans tonight. They had agreed that he would wait until Rey had seen her friends, and they would go back together.

“Hux called,” Ben’s voice just a whisper, he looks uncomfortable and is not making eye contact with her.

“I’m going with you,” she says. If Ben has been called back to the city by a member of the First Order Rey is going with him.

Ben sighs, “of course you are.”

***

He didn’t know why Hux suddenly needed him, Hux was very tight-lipped about it, not wanting to get into much detail over the phone. But Ben knew it couldn’t be something good.

He knew that it was a mistake even before Rey said she was coming with him. He still told her Hux had requested his presence in the city, and let her come with him, even if he knew it was a mistake bringing her.

How much of a mistake it really hits him like a ton of bricks when they pulled up at the location Hux said they were meeting at, an abandoned warehouse outside of town, and they are met with a scene that leaves little to the imagination of what is about to transpire.

Hux and a few of the guys are there, all with guns in their hands, forming a sort of semi-circle around a person, with a hood over their head and hands tied, kneeling on the ground. Visible tremors is making the slouched form kneeling shake.

Ben doesn’t need to see the face to know who it is, he can tell, even if the form in front of him now looks nothing like she usually does.

“Ah, wonderful that you could join us,” Hux says, a hint of a smirk playing on his lips, “and lovely to meet you again,” he says directed at Rey who as stepped out of the car behind Ben.

Hux doesn’t care that she’s there. He thinks Rey is like his Omega’s, forced into submission, too scared to do anything other than comply.

The hood covering the kneeling forms face is removed. A small gasp leaves Rey, something that makes Ben slowly turn his head to look at her, his eyes narrowing at her. He needs her to be quiet. She can’t react to this; they’re screwed if she does.

“What is this?” Ben asks directed at Hux.

Hux smirks, “Captain Phasma of the Coruscant Police.”

“I am aware,” Ben snaps, “what I’m wondering is what the fuck possessed you to drag her out here like this?”

“The Supreme leader was very clear…” Hux starts. “Kidnapping a member of the police force was not part of his instructions,” Ben interrupts.

Hux exhales, eyes narrowing at Ben. He obviously didn’t appreciate Ben interrupting what was probably going to be a long speech.

“The Supreme leader was very clear in his instruction of stopping the police’s investigation into us. And she is heading up the task force.”

“So you thought the best way to do that was kidnapping her?” Ben spits.

“It is the best way to gather intel,” Hux retorts, “we all know that someone in the organization is giving the police information on us and she knows who.” 

Ben looks from Hux to Phasma. She looks rough, her eyes bloodshot, bruises forming on several places on her face and neck, dried blood covering the left side of her face from a wound close to her hairline.

“And did she tell you?” Ben asks. He keeps his gaze at Phasma. She looks back at him, eyes wide, then she slightly, almost unnoticeably, shakes her head.

“No,” Hux sighs.

Ben scoffs, “so what’s next? Rough her up a bit more, hoping that she’ll tell you?” he pauses, sighing, “you didn’t have to kidnap her and drag her out here, anyone with half a brain could have told you that this isn’t the best way to get her to reveal her sources.”

Hux face contorts into an angry scowl, staring daggers at Ben, “so it seems.”

Ben shakes his head. Hux always took it to far. He was so eager to follow orders, and so hungry for power, that he always had a way of taking it too far.

“Why am I here, Hux?” Ben asks, he gesticulates to Phasma, “I could have told you that this is a bad idea and that you should let her go over the phone.”

Surprisingly Hux smiles, “we can’t let her go. She has seen our faces, and she’ll figure out who we are.”

Of course. It was mutual assured destruction.

It was Hux’s way of covering for his mistake with Snoke. If Snoke knew that Ben had also been involved it wouldn’t reflect badly only on Hux.

“She won’t figure it out,” Ben says. No matter how frustrating he has found Phasma, how much he disliked her, he won’t be part of condemning her to what Hux has surely already decided is her fate.

Hux snickers, “I never though Kylo Ren would argue for sparing a police officer.”

Ben looks down at his feet. Shame. That’s what he’s feeling. He’s ashamed of what he is, what he has become. He should never have put himself on the path that lead him here.

He turns to look at Rey, his look doesn’t meet her eyes, “get in the car,” he says, thankfully she complies without argument.

“You already knew what you were going to do when you called me,” he growls at Hux, “this is only so you can tell Snoke that you weren’t alone in this,” he turns on his heel, getting back in the car quickly.

Even with the roaring from the motor as Ben drives away as fast as he can, he can hear the loud bang echoing in the distance.


	15. Chapter 15

Rey has seen a dead body before. She was called out to a traffic accident in her first month as an officer. It was one of those things that stuck with her. It was an accident, a driver lost control of his car on one of the first days of winter, it had been snowing. He had done everything right. The death of the driver of the car he hit was an accident.

It still stuck with Rey, seeing someone dead in real life.

People died, naturally due to old age, from sickness or in accidents.

Phasma’s death was due to neither of those things. Phasma was murdered. She was killed because of her job, because of deranged people having the power to decide that her life was going to end.

Rey hadn’t actually seen it happen. Still, it affected her more than what she saw when she responded to the traffic accident.

It’s like everything is moving in slow motion, but still so fast. It’s like her brain can’t process.

Without her really registering how she got there, like she was just magically transported there, she finds herself on the sofa in Ben’s living room.

He’s talking. He’s standing in front of her, hands clasped, looking down at the floor in front of him and he’s saying something.

She just looks at him, blankly staring at him.

She knows what this is. She’s in shock. And she’s not able to snap out of it, no matter how hard she tries.

Phasma was kidnapped, beaten, and then shot. Even if Rey didn’t see Phasma get shot, she heard it as they were driving away. She’s sure it was fatal. They wouldn’t have left her alive.

And Ben, he just let it happen. He just drove away knowing that Phasma was going to die.

“You didn’t…” Rey takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly, trying to keep her voice from shaking, “stop them.”

“There’s nothing I could have done.”

She looks at him. Studies his face. His expression pained. It’s like he needs to tell himself that. Like he knows just as well as Rey that by doing nothing he let them kill her.

All the excuses she has made for him. Her coping mechanism for dealing with her predicament. Of dealing with what he had inflicted on her and put her through. It was like a wall she had built around them to protect them, a grand wall of excuses, of explanations, something she needed to believe to be able to look at him, to be able to be with him, and it has been torn down. What was left was him standing before her with nothing around them to protect them from the harsh reality.

There was no excuse. He didn’t get to feel like that. It wasn’t his pain. It was Phasma’s pain, it was those closest to hers pain. It wasn’t his. He didn’t get to feel that.

“You could have done something,” she says, her voice weak, just a whisper.

He shakes his head, defeated, “they would have killed us if I did.”

“You could have saved her,” she raises her voice, looking at him in disbelief. He won’t even look at her. He won’t even give her the respect of looking at her when he talks to her.

He doesn’t respond. He’s still looking down on the floor between them.

She scoffs, “you couldn’t do anything?” she spits, standing up, getting in his face, “You are so much deeper in this than you told Phasma. You lied to us, you’re not innocent, a guy that got a bit in over his head. You’re at the top,” she pauses, hitting his chest, “you’re Kylo Ren.”

She should cuff him again, and this time it won’t end with them fucking, it will end with her marching him to the closest police station and demanding that he’s placed in custody.

His eyes finally meet her’s, they’re dark, hard, “yes,” he grits.

“You’re a monster,” she spits. A weird sense of déjà vu hits her. She has called him that before.

He huffs, taking a step back from her, eyes lock on the floor in front of him again.

She shakes her head. Fucking coward. He can’t even truly acknowledge what he has done.

She won’t let them get away with this. She’s going to put an end to this right now.

She starts to move, walking towards the door. She is going into the station to inform them want happened, and what she has learned.

“You can’t leave,” he says, hands grabbing her, holding her in place.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she hisses, fighting his grip.

He sighs, “don’t do anything impulsive,” he says as he drags her towards the door to her room, pushing her inside and locking the door from the outside.

Is she next? Is that what is going to happen now? He locked her in her room, left her there overnight. And as the sun is rising, a new day beginning, she can’t help the thoughts that come. The thought that he is going to hurt her too, that he is going to kill her because of what she knows.

It’s really the only way she can see this ending. If he leaves her alive, he must know that she isn’t going to keep quiet about this. She’ll expose them, expose him for what he is, for what he has done. Even with the bond she feels, the invisible pull she feels towards him, she wants to see him rot in prison. Even if that hurts her too.

Mates can’t be compelled to testify against each other, they can if they want to, but she’s never heard of that happening. Probably because of the bond they share. Probably because of the pain they would feel from being apart from their mate.

Ben is not her mate, the bond she has with him is forced upon her, and one-sided. He doesn’t have the same pull to her, the same invisible strings binding him to her. She can’t help but wonder how it will feel when she seals his fate. Will it hurt her?

It probably will. She’ll probably have to live with the ache of not being close to him, the pain of being the one that delivered the proof that sent him away.

But she can live with that. For Ben paying for what he has done, for him being locked away so he can’t hurt anyone else, she can live with it.

***

He doesn’t have a plan. He has no way forward. At least not a way that ends well.

That’s why they are there. He would have avoided it, usually he rarely took part. Now he’s just going with it.

He barely slept last night. The events etched into his mind. Every time he closed his eyes it started re-playing in his mind. What happened. What he could have done differently. And finally, what happens next.

He can’t change what happened, but maybe he can change what happened next.

He can’t let Rey go. She’ll talk, she’ll tell them everything. He didn’t want to lock her in her room, he didn’t want to use force to keep her from contacting the police, but he had to. He just needs a way to fix it. Even though he knows it can’t be fixed. But he hopes that he can make it better somehow.

Even with Rey as a witness, Hux has a way of getting away with things, he’ll probably get away with killing Phasma too. Ben is sure that Hux hasn’t left any evidence. Even if Ben supports her, it will be Rey’s word against Hux. And it won’t end well.

Ben eyes Hux from his comfortable position on a sofa. Ben is holding Rey close, afraid to let her go, like she’ll get taken away or consumed by the First Order if he lets her go. She hates it. He can tell. She’s squirming next to him, avoiding looking at him and everything else in the room, keeping her eyes fixed at her knees. Ben tries to ignore Rey’s obvious discomfort as he observes Hux.

Hux is in his right element, he’s drinking and doing drugs, he’s getting his poor Omega’s to perform for him, either by dancing in front of him or getting undressed so everyone in the room can gawk at them. Hux enjoys it, he gets pleasure from putting other people down, forcing them to bend to his will.

Ben won’t interfere, he’ll watch and when the time is right he’ll take Hux aside for a private conversation. Ben needs proof. He needs Hux to confess, not just to what he did to Phasma but to everything. There is no other way out of it for Ben, but he won’t go down alone. He will at least try to take Hux down with him.

When Ben first went to the police it was after months of deliberation. It wasn’t a choice he made lightly. He knew the consequences. He knew what could happen if he got caught.

He still managed to talk himself into it. He couldn’t go on living the life he had. He was living a lie. He was one thing to the world, he was someone successful, someone that from the outside seemed to have it all. But the secret he was hiding, the secret persona he had made, was eating at him. They were two different men, Ben Solo and Kylo Ren, they were separate from each other. But over time the lines between them was blurred, he didn’t know where Ben Solo began and Kylo Ren ended anymore. He felt it before, felt the weight of his actions as Kylo Ren, he felt the guilt. That is what made him go to the police. He didn’t want to be that person. He wanted to be himself again, who he was before, and maybe he could also become someone better. That was what he had hoped for. He hoped that with helping the police, with taking down the organization he had done so many bad things in the name of, he would someday maybe feel like himself again.

When he first met Phasma he didn’t like her, and the feeling was mutual. None of the made any attempt to hide that. But they had a common goal, which enabled them to be able to work together. And even if Ben didn’t particularly like Phasma, he did respect her. She had a good sense of morality, she was working for the common good, and she wasn’t scared of a fight. She was really the perfect person to lead the work with dismantling the First Order. 

Now that she’s gone, Ben can’t immediately see who is going to have the courage to continue her work. But he’ll at least try to do his part, he’ll get Hux to confess to his sins while he records it. It’s the only thing he can think of to do. And maybe Hux will implicate other figures in the organization, like Snoke.

It had started like Ben told them, he represented a guy that was charged with murder, and Ben got him off. The guy was a part of the First Order, and Ben had caught their attention. At first it was just representation in legal matters, then came the small favors, all things that lawyers usually did for their clients. Ben was abiding by the law until he met Snoke.

Snoke wasn’t a person that one would immediately feel a sort of kinship with. He looked like a guy that had lived a hard life, ragged and with a face full of scars. If criminals had a specific look, Snoke was it. But when Snoke started talking he had this way of luring people in.

And after a few meetings, some long deep conversations, Ben couldn’t help but feel like he and the old man were becoming friends. Even if Ben knew that Snoke wasn’t a good man, he let it happen, he let himself trust him. Snoke said all the right things, he respected Ben, he gave him advise, he saw Ben in a way no one had before. Over time Snoke became sort of like a father figure to him, and Ben became one of Snoke’s most trusted men.

Ben was weak, he had so easily let himself get tricked into it, let himself fall so low, and all because some old man acted like he wished his parents had.

He lied about it, his relationship with Snoke, because he was ashamed. He still wanted to stop Snoke, to put an end to his operation, even if he lied about his own true involvement. That is what brought him to go to the police in the first place. And no matter what has happened now, Ben knows that it has to end. He has to find a way to end it.

Going after Snoke was going to be hard. Hux was in a way a softer target, especially when he was in a party mood. Hux let his guard down more then. So hopefully Ben was able to get something out of him that he could work with, and maybe if he got that he could get Rey to work with him. She wanted the same thing, she wanted to take down the First Order, the people that hurt Phasma. She probably wanted to take down Ben too. But maybe she would be able to see past her hatred of him one last time and she’ll work with him.

***

Rey honestly thought there was nothing left that could shock her. There was no turn of events that could surprise her at this point.

But turns out, there was.

It was sick. Killing a person one day and having a party the next. She wasn’t surprised that they were that cavalier about taking a human life that they had a party the day after, but she was surprised that she found herself in attendance. She was expecting Ben to keep her locked in a room until he could figure out what to do with her, she never expected him to unlock the door in the afternoon and announcing that Hux was having a party and that they were going.

Ben kept a constant watch of her, and he was too strong for her to fight off so she could get away, so she went along with it. She would just have to play along until she found the opportune moment to escape.

It came in the form of Ben wanting to talk with Hux, dragging the sick fuck away from the horrible things he was doing.

Rey hadn’t paid much attention, she found that she felt sick just by watching. But she did see that Hux had spent the entire night acting like a disgusting asshole, making the women in attendance cater to his every whim.

Having him gone from the room, with Ben leaving with him, finally gave Rey an opportunity.

She didn’t have her phone, Ben had taken it the night before, and she highly doubted that anyone would lend her one so she could call the police. So her only option is to get out of there, run as fast as she can and hide until she can find a way to contact the police.

When entering the mansion the party was at she noticed that the door was being watched by big burly not very nice looking men. She guesses that it would be like that for all entry points. There is no way she’ll be allowed to leave on her own, so that is not an option. Something that means she has to think out of the box. Maybe a window. There has to be a window somewhere in the house that she can climb out of.

She starts at the ground floor, moving as inconspicuously as she can trying every door. Most of them are locked. Just her luck.

Until she finds one that opens.

“Shit,” she curses, “I’m so sorry.”

There is a girl in the room, it’s a bathroom.

“Oh, it’s ok,” she shrugs, “I forgot to lock.” She gives Rey a smile.

There is something about her voice. Something familiar. Rey has heard it before.

“I know you,” Rey’s brows furrow, “you tried to warn me.”

She shakes her head, looking away from Rey, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Rey steps into the room, closing the door behind her, “I’m getting out of here,” she whispers.

Telling this girl what she’s doing can go wrong. But Rey is sure that this is the girl that tried to warn her, if she did that Rey is sure she won’t tell.

Rey moves towards the window, trying to open it.

“It’s welded shut,” the girl says.

Rey turns to look at her. The girl face looks drawn, like she has years of experience beyond her age. But she can’t be much older than Rey.

“Then we’ll just have to break it,” Rey says resolutely.

She won’t accept a fate like this. She won’t be locked away. She is getting away no matter what.

This is her moment. Ben is occupied with Hux, she might not get another opportunity like this again soon.

The glass doesn’t break easily. Rey is trying to do it as quietly as possible, using a towel as a buffer to reduce the sounds of the glass breaking as she uses the heel of her shoe to hit it. Who knew that stilettos could actually be useful?

It’s fast. It’s like time is moving very fast, but still so slow again. He heart is beating out of her chest. If she gets caught like this there is no telling what is going to happen. She just needs to get away. And she needs to get this girl to go with her.

Rey can’t make a substantial difference, she can’t change many lives, she has realized that. But if she can just make a difference to one person. Save them from a life of continued abuse and misery. That will be enough.

Rey is moving fast, the glass of the window finally breaking allowing enough room for her to climb out, and she’s halfway out the window looking back at the girl occupying the bathroom with her who has just been watching in silence as Rey made a way for them to escape.

“Come with me,” Rey extends her arm to her. The girl shakes her head, looking down at the floor, “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Rey tries not to raise her voice, it’s just so hard keeping it down when she is frustrated. She needs her to understand. She needs her to see that this is not a life. “Do you want to live like this?” Rey asks, “do you want to be their toy, something they just use for their sick amusement,” she sighs, “I know you were the one that tired to warn me, do for yourself what you urged me to do. Come with me and we will get far away from them, they’ll never find us. I promise.”

Rey is not sure if that is a promise she can keep. She’ll try her best. She’ll fight. She’ll do anything in her power to keep that promise.


End file.
